Stay Classy, Ezra!

In casting about for reasons to oppose the Stupak amendment, Ezra Klein invents and plays the class warfare card:

Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment did not make abortion illegal. And it did not block the federal government from subsidizing abortion. All it did was block it from subsidizing abortion for poorer women.

Stupak's amendment stated that the public option cannot provide abortion coverage, and that no insurer participating on the exchange can provide abortion coverage to anyone receiving subsidies. But as Rep. Jim Cooper points out in the interview below, the biggest federal subsidy for private insurance coverage is untouched by Stupak's amendment. It's the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free.

That money, however, subsidizes the insurance of 157 million Americans, many of them quite affluent. Imagine if Stupak had attempted to expand his amendment to their coverage. It would, after all, have been the same principle: Federal policy should not subsidize insurance that offers abortion coverage.  But it would have failed in an instant. That group is too large, and too affluent, and too politically powerful for Congress to dare to touch their access to reproductive services.

I resist the implicit notion that from a Federal perspective all your income are belong to us.  And as an aside, direct employee compensation, i.e., wages, is also deductible as an employer expense, and therefore is "subsidized" by the Feds.  Which means that even people who pay for abortion services out of their hard-earned cash are enjoying a Federal subsidy, right?  Since all the money "really" belongs to the Feds?

But set that aside.  Mr. Klein may be right that there are affluent women among the employed.  But in lining up his imagined "Us" against "Them", he may be vexed or discouraged to find unions workers and just about every member of the AFSCME on the wrong side of the line.  Plenty of blue collar folks, who may or may not consider themselves to be affluent, enjoy a federal "subsidy" of their health care plan and have no intention of abandoning it.  And it is their political power that forced the Senate to contemplate a tax of only "Cadillac" employer-sponsored plans, as Mr. Klein well knows.

Whatever - Democrats can chew themselves up on this one.  And its great to see our national "leader" voting present.

SHORTER JIM COOPER:  I am they and we are he.  Koo Koo Ka Choo.

Comments

[MTF]

It's depressing that sloppy collectivist thinking so dominates the self-appointed intellectual elites that Klein can dash off this sort of claptrap without an editor calling out "rewrite"! Sadly, the editors all pass it without comment, since to them it is self-evidently true that anything the government doesn't tax away from the serfs should properly be characterized as a "government subsidy".

[daveinboca]

I'm expecting the JournoList-serve ratpack to take the Ezraista Leninist line and run with it. The Cabal usually runs a leader line up the flagpole to see if everyone else will salute, and then pretty soon you'll see Brian-W & Charlie G as the latest way to inflict infanticide on us all.

[jimmyk]

I think it's a fair point that health plans are tax-favored (if you don't like the term "subsidized"), but Klein omits that eliminating this was the key element of the McCain plan, and of plans advocated by people like Martin Feldstein. The point is that the tax treatment is the big reason that "health insurance" has morphed into "pre-paid medical plans," with all the attendant jumps in spending that you would expect to get.

It is also a total non sequitur as far as the abortion amendment is concerned. It's like saying "Why did they prohibit abortion funding but keep the mortgage interest deduction?"

[Janet]

So is this E. Klein fellow a big expert on abortion? I am really done with the old guard's opinions on just about everything. If he got his degree in journalism, I will maybe listen to him on how to keep a journal, but otherwise....

[Porchlight]

Janet,

Li'l Ezra is 25 years old and has been a "professional journalist" for at least 4-5 years IIRC. No offense to our younger commenters, but though the left thinks he is a wunderkind, he knows zero about anything.

[daddy]

"SHORTER JIM COOPER: I am they and we are he. Koo Koo Ka Choo."

I thought the walrus was Paul, not Jim Cooper.

And quick, somebody give him a Swine Flu Shit!

[daddy]

Or a Swine Flu Shot---same difference.

[Extraneus]

Gee. The Stupak amendment may not be the final word.

Obama: I think that there are strong feelings on both sides. And what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo.

[Kevin T. Keith]

It is impossible to find a point in your babbling, or that of the commenters above. Perhaps I am misled by imagining that your response to the Klein article was intended to reflect the content of the Klein article. As an exercise in random libertarian caterwauling, it succeeds on its own merits, though the opening paragraph's apparent attempt at relevance, or, indeed, having a point, is somewhat confusing.

As to what you would have learned by understanding what Klein wrote, it is this: there is a clear and remarkably close linkage between cash wages and employer-provided healthcare; what your employer pays for your healthcare premiums comes directly out of your paycheck. In this sense, wages for similar workers (similar jobs, same city, etc.) are roughly equal, lumping healthcare benefits in with cash wages. But the portion that comes in the form of health insurance is untaxed; if you get that same amount in cash because your employer does not provide health insurance, you pay taxes on it. So the health insurance is a major tax break for the workers who have it. Their contribution to the total federal income tax receipts is less than that of workers in similar jobs because they're paying taxes on less cash income (while the other workers not only pay more taxes but then have to buy their own health insurance at individual rates). So the tax break is essentially a transfer tax from those who don't get an employer health plan to those who do - which, overall, is a transfer up the class scale.

Another way of putting it is that workers with employer-provided health insurance are getting a tax rebate: they make the same overall income but pay less taxes, in proportion to the cost of their health insurance, compared to workers without that benefit. The government made a law granting them exemption from paying taxes on part of their income, which part is then used to provide them with health insurance. So the government is subsidizing their health insurance through the mechanism of a tax exemption on that benefit, for them and only for them.

It's got nothing to do with who "owns" the money. You have income. You pay taxes. They provide benefits that everyone enjoys. It's civilization. However disappointing that is to you, suck it up and deal. Since you're going to pay taxes anyway, it's worth asking whether the taxes are fairly distributed. In regard to healthcare insurance, they're not - and in a way that (not exclusively, but systematically) benefits the upper classes, by giving them a tax rebate (exemption) to pay for their health care while everyone else gets to go screw.

And the kicker is this: some of the privileged workers who enjoy tax-protected healthcare benefits have plans that include abortion services. So the government subsidy does provide for abortion care - but only for the relatively privileged folks who get treated to a subsidized, tax-free healthcare plan under the auspices of their employer, but not for those who require health insurance subsidies directly from the government.

Now you know. Feel free to go Galt, or whatever it was you were doing.

[anduril]

Uh-oh: Health Care Reform: Reich Overboard! Bad news for Obama when he starts losing true believers who give talking points to both waverers and outright skeptics. Hey, let's talk about this some more...

[Gregory Koster]

With luck, Klein's howling will catch fire with the Left, and create conflicts that can be exploited profitably in the Senate, e.g. "Don't be a dummy like Cao---the only way to get rid of this abortion mill funding is to kill the bill." Ezra will shriek against the "conspiracies" that have flummoxed him---again---but that will be drowned out by the snickers and hosannahs from those who have another goal in life besides sucking up to The Once.

[anduril]

Who's this Keith guy? I mean, I write long posts sometimes, but they're absorbing and impart vital information, like, about Linux.

[narciso]

With this crew, it is the same thing daddy, with the noted epidemiologist Sebelius, to
Walter Bishop I mean John Holdren. Reading Ezra, which you do Tom so we don't have to, subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.

[Extraneus]

Shouldn't they be able to tell you what to do in your own house, since the mortgage interest deduction is a "transfer tax"?

[narciso]

Didn't Cooper lose his seat 15 years, trying
to square the circle, when he ran for the Senate seat that Bill Frist wouldeventually win. I know Ezra was 10 years old back then,
but you could look things up, on occasion.

[qrstuv]

Failing to tax = subsidizing!

Now be good, or we'll reduce your allowance.

[hit and run]

Extraneus:
Shouldn't they be able to tell you what to do in your own house, since the mortgage interest deduction is a "transfer tax"?

Why,yes they'll definitely get to that.

You will be forced to greenify your house.

[bad]

So the government subsidy does provide for abortion care - but only for the relatively privileged folks who get treated to a subsidized, tax-free healthcare plan under the auspices of their employer, but not for those who require health insurance subsidies directly from the government.

Dude!! Your women who require an abortion can get a job and be subsidized.

Easy fix....

[Extraneus]

I can certainly understand that, Hit. After all, it's civilization. And it wouldn't be fair to renters.

But hey, that raises a point. Should't we be able to tell renters what to do, since their kids go to schools that we pay taxes for?

Renters shouldn't be allowed to reproduce, I say.

[Frau Ekel]

Mr.Keith has an alarm that lets him know when one of "the enemy" has dirtied the intertubes. He wants to confront the "fetus worshipers." Here's more than you want:
"7 Nov 2009-Democratic women are putting up a good fight – and their male allies deserve thanks, too. The Republicans have shrunk from merely legislative misogyny to outright thuggery, as they so commonly do. Michele Bachman led crowds of right wingers through the Congressional office buildings earlier today, invading offices and screaming at people to, in her words, “scare” them away from supporting women and healthcare for all. House Republicans staged an organized disruption on the floor today, systematically interrupting Democratic women as they spoke in favor of women’s interests and full healthcare coverage. The healthcare debate is being conducted the same way the Florida recount was in 2000: in the face of Republican assaults and intimidation, and without regard for the truth or significance of the actual substantive issue.
9 Nov 2009-Just this week we’ve seen a terrible mass murder committed by a Muslim military officer who was apparently distraught over the war in Afghanistan and his possible deployment. Literally before the bodies were cool, various right-wingers jumped in to denounce “Muslim terrorism” and to cite vague links between the suspect and Al Qaeda (he visited a mosque which was also visited by someone who knew someone who was connected with Al Qaeda); however, it is not clear that the apparent perpetrator’s motives were intended for a political end at all – as opposed to merely an outburst of personal anxiety – and there is little to suggest that it was terrorism in any reasonable sense."

And the *babbling* comes from JOM?

[sbw]

I'm waiting for the next exciting KTK comment where he finally comes to the conclusion that a subsidy of anything warps the economy and is to be discouraged.

He will have rediscovered Adam Smith 230 years after the fact.

Let's do the time warp again!

[Frau Entschuldigung]

Oops! I forgot that feeding is what the left-wing extremist troll is after.

Now I'll go back and read yesterday's extensive linux tracts to do penance.

[Extraneus]

But Frau, we know from the headlines that it actually *was* an outburst of Hassan's personal anxiety.

[Arthurize]

Love the blog, but hate when people get Beatles lyrics wrong.They're not that many It's "goo goo goo joob".

[Frau Entschuldigung]

bad, you are so bad.

Extraneus, I don't think Mel Brooks is going to make a movie of Iowahawk's latest, great work, but he should.

[Jim Ryan]

KEVIN: Hi, my name is Kevin and I'm a prig.

OTHER PRIGS: Hi, Kevin.

KEVIN: Yeah, I write long posts on other people's blogs. Without really understanding the proprietor's posts.

OTHER PRIGS: [VARIOUS SYMPATHETIC GROANS]

KEVIN: I feel I have to lecture people on what I know they already understand. I feel if I hold forth, then I don't really have to confront tough issues. It's like I know they get it but I just want to explain it in three or four paragraphs. That way I don't have to address their point of view. Think of it this way, I think others need to -

OTHER PRIGS: Yes, yes, we get it, Kevin.

[MayBee]

What is this world coming to? When I was younger, the girls and young women who got abortions had to pony up and pay themselves. They weren't about to try to claim it on their parents' insurance.

Aren't they about $200 at Planned Parenthood?

[clarice]

He wants to confront the "fetus worshippers" cause don't you know he says he;s a forever grad student in bioethics..Remember what kind of crap is going on in academe the next time the friendlt alumni fund raiser rings you up.

[E. Nigma]

"You will be forced to greenify your house."
-hit and run

Actually, you may already know, but that is in the Cap and Trade bill. There is a requirement that will be phased in that will require the seller to improve the heating an cooling efficiency (reduce the need to produce those NASTY greenhouse gases, don't you know?) of the house to a certain level before the new buyer can qualify for a mortgage. And that works out really well in the years to come, because only Federally subsidized lenders will be left to make home loans.

We live in a free country. Just keep saying that like you mean it.

[Neo]

Since all the money "really" belongs to the Feds?

Isn't this the argument that the Feds used to jam "Title IX" down the throats of private colleges and universities.

[Jim Ryan]

Why have lefties for almost a century been fighting for the easy access of poor blacks to abortions? It's almost as if the founder of Planned Parenthood had said, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population" or "It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things."

[Neo]

You really have to wonder here Ezra Klein is trying to take this.

If he thinks that the Congress-critters will grow a pair and case off the "Pro-lifers", he is just naive. I think he missed that battle back around the time that he was learning to walk.

The real bottom line on all of this stuff is that when you pour all your hope and dreams into one (healthcare) system, you have to realize that one day the other guys may be in power and vote to make your favorite cause illegal. That's when diversity is so great.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

It is impossible to find a point in your babbling, or that of the commenters above

Only to the intellectually challenged.

[Janet the Luddite]

((Who's this Keith guy? I mean, I write long posts sometimes, but they're absorbing and impart vital information, like, about Linux.))

Hahaha anduril!

[hit and run]

Charlie:
Only to the intellectually challenged.

I believe the correct pc term is differently-abled.

Celebrate Diversity!

[Captain Hate]

You have income. You pay taxes. They provide benefits that everyone enjoys.

Let's play "Find the howler".

[clarice]

Where to begin, Capt:
"Sufficient Scruples” is blogged by Kevin T. Keith (”KTK”).

Who he?

Kevin T. Keith is an aging graduate student who, when he began his advanced education in bioethics, confidently expected to finish his PhD by the turn of the millenium, and still does. He has taught bioethics and done clinical ethics work at two medical schools, and until recently taught ethics and related subjects in the adult night-school program of City College, City University of New York. He hopes some day to become a real boy.
"

[Captain Hate]

He has taught bioethics and done clinical ethics work at two medical schools, and until recently taught ethics and related subjects in the adult night-school program of City College, City University of New York.

Is that where prospective doctors find out about how the health care in this country is broken, instead of learning things that would be useful for treating people with diseases? Kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy, no?

[Jane]

Keith has a blog where he talks about "anti-choice terrorists" (tiller) and as opposed to "real or imagined" terrorism of someone distraught over their impending deployment.

Check the link under his name.

[clarice]

Well, bioethicists will be on the death panels coming to your neighborhood soon. Yessir--jerks like Keith wll finally find regular employment.

[Jim Ryan]

Professional applied ethics (bioethics, business ethics) is a pseudo-field. What is the right thing to do as a doctor or businessman is not something that one can become an expert in. Anyone who knows the relevant facts of business or medicine and has common sense is as prepared to judge the right thing to do in any case as any professional ethicist.

[Rick Ballard]

Perhaps I'm missing something but wouldn't an honest (stop laughing) assessment include a proposal that the least productive pay some small share of the general burden of taxes upon income prior to proposing to increase the tax burden upon the more productive?

[clarice]

Well since the least productive generally create the greatest demand on public services you might have a point there, Rick, but remember I am not one of those genius graduate school bioethicists.

[And now Yamal appears to be a moisture proxy rather than a temperature one.]

Off topic, but the LUN for climate audit as well as Watts Up have a transcript for a Finnish TV broadcast that explains the disaster that is the hockey stick as well as anything I've ever read.
================================

[shrup]

Keith may be a twit, but he is spot on in his analysis of the economic distortion caused by the tax treatment of medical insurance. It's disturbing to come to an ostensibly libertarian website and find that the groupies don't even recognize they're suckling at the collectivist teat.

[Melinda Romanoff]

I didn't think KtK had worked a day in his life. You only toss around "wages" like that except in two places. Neither of which, I've found to be particularly productive.

Oh but of course, he "worked" on his papers...

Bet he'd lose fingers picking up a hand saw.

[Jim Ryan]

don't even recognize

That's cute, shrup. How you're taking people to task for not knowing something.

The other day my five-year-old told me to be careful with a knife so I wouldn't cut myself. I was using a butter knife. It was adorable.

[Janet]

((suckling at the collectivist teat.))...excuse me, but I am most definitely NOT doing that.
Brushing up on bioethics, learning about linux, and finding out that "failing to tax = subsidizing"...but NOT suckling.

[hit and run]

A conversation about medical ethics actually makes a visit to the PUK thread on topic.

[Captain Hate]

the groupies don't even recognize they're suckling at the collectivist teat.

I recognize a coherent argument and I haven't seen it in KTK or his sycophants. Lots of "edgy" snark though...

[Melinda Romanoff]

kim-

Bonus data points. My favorite. 611, sounds like a government phone number for the self help desk at AT&T.

Or 252, whichever.

Looking kind of sloppy, as does the backtracking.

[clarice]

You have to be really smart to be a bioethicist--it's not like medicine or physics or law or even accounting. Singer at Princeton, for example, is a bioethicist..you know the guy who says it's okay to kill already born children and have intercourse with your pets. Not just anyone is clever enough to be a bioethicist.

And it's the occupation of the future..so many death panels , so few bioethicists.

[Jim Ryan]

Kim's link has a summary of Richard Lindzen's empirical findings in the last few paragraphs.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Still sounds like a self-constructed, blind alley to me, clarice.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Porch gets a line at Glenn's Place. Congrats! (LUN)

[clarice]

She's like a porno star or something #^)

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Narcissist in Chief:

Here's what The One thought was the most important thing to remember about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"Few would have foreseen ... that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."

That's right, the Fall of Communism was maybe kind of a big deal, but it was just a footnote on the path to history's ultimate destiny ... the election of B. Hussein Obama.

Did the massive ego mention Reagan at any time in his address? What do you think?

He sent a video about himself? Ewwwwwww.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Sara-

You've got mail.

And I'm going to hit the rack.

G'night all.

[sbw]

shrup -- he is spot on in his analysis of the economic distortion

You must not read MY comments.

[Frau Angelsächsisch]

I don't suck, and I don't hang out with those who do! As a result, my mother had hopes that I would be a child star but my hair didn't curl.

Ah, bioethicists.(Even spell check doesn't like the word.) Doktor Ezekiel Emmanuel found it was easier to speed cancer patients' deaths than to work at saving them. Now that really sucks.

What's hrup?

[narciso]

And Robert McCain has linked this thread

[clarice]

Still, frau, think of this--you're a not terribly attractive guy and you want to get some coeds into bed. If you say you're a speech major or working on your masters in drivers ed..they might not find you so appealing, but throw out a fancy sounding major like bioethicist.(5 syllables!) Surely that's a bonus.Spmnone majoring in, say, women's studies or thinking about basket weaving might think that was interesting.

[narciso]

Couldn't he have just sent the I pod with his speeches, "World Freedom Day" sometimes
I think we wandered into a Futurama cartoon a thousand years early.

[clarice]

narciso, when I see how many idiots this clown has vamboozled, I regret having failed to become a bunco artist.

[narciso]

It looks like the malwarebytes in safe network mode worked, my local Office Max looked at me like I was speaking Japanese, when I mentioned some of the things we discussed here; I felt like John Cleese in the cheeseshop, before he snaps

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

For those who might be interested, from the Counterterrorism Blog:

Sue Schmidt of the International Assessment and Strategy Center has just published an extensive piece on the background of Anwar al-Aulaqui (AKA Anwar Al-Awlaki), the imam who have helped radicalize Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan. it is a sobering reminder of how the radicalization process works, particularly if one looks at that background and the posting of my colleague Evan Kholmann to get a sense of what he actually said.

[Flodigarry]

Maybee,

I am with you. You want an abortion? Pay for your own damn abortion, or get one of the multitude of folks that support the right to abortion to provide you with an abortionship or somesuch.

[narciso]

Aulaqi, is like the proverbial Kevin Bacon, everyone from Al Hamzi and Al Midhar to the
paintball jihadists Al Timimi, to the late
AQ in Arabia's Youssef Nideri, is all in the list

[Fresh Air]

Aren't they about $200 at Planned Parenthood?

Hey, it adds up if you have one a year from age 12 to 24.

[clarice]

We could start some faith healng religion, buy a lobbyist and get included in the roster of those non-physicians who can be paid out of this (untimately) tax bonanza. Healing Hands sounds just right to me. narciso, you can be one of our shaman if you'd like.
Then we could expand to provide death panels to communities..that Keith fellow sounds just right for this gig.

[Ann]

I don't know how long it took Hit to find the posts where PUK talked about his mother, but Hit, the best friend anyone could hope to have ♥, found them and posted them on the PUK thread.

Take a kleenex.

[narciso]

It's like something out of that movie, by the people behind "My Cousin Vinny" and
"Yes, Prime Minister", I'm not making that
up. "THe Distinguished Gentlemen" with Eddy
Murphy, or possibly that other film he did, where he played a guru

[Frau Angelsächsisch]

Did the media show up at Porchlight's yet?

clarice, sound arguments except that FLOTUS has been giving advice on how to pick a prize in the pick-a-part lot of life. She emphasized inner qualities over flashy looks and the importance of how women and children were treated. She advised checking on the *basis* for nicknames. "Ole Stinky" took getting used to, and she really got in trouble with Axelturf for mentioning it.

(BTW the Vollkorn bread is very good. Don't bake until the wheat berries have really softened, after 24 hours.)

[Frau Angelsächsisch]

Thanks, Sara. That's quite a read.

[Pofarmer]

Would someone explain to these numbnuts that employer provided health care was CAUSED by businesses trying to do an end around the collectivist's wage controls in WWII?? Yes, the progs caused this mess, now, they assure us they can fix it, just trust em.

[megapotamus]

Barack was neutral on Stupak? Okay, but isn't he neutral on EVERYTHING? I mean, he wants a bill, that much is clear but he doesn't care about the Public Option either way, right? He is neutral on tort reform so it is lucky there is none in there! He is FOR deficit neutrality but since that would preclude signing any plausible bill he has to be neutral on neutrality. With his deft, unexplained abandonment of 17 million of the uninsured from one day to the next I think we can say he is neutral on the coverage of illegals (the phantom 17m). Once he found out that the hated Cadillac Plans were favored by SEIU bigwigs he became neutral on the virtues of those. When this puke Obama votes "present" even THAT is a lie. He's not making it up as he goes along, he is purely reactive and not only on this issue. Our foes overseas and at home see this and salivate. Now on A-stan he has compromised UP to 36k reinforcements. Of course no decision is likely before Nov 19th! sayeth Gibbs. I'm sure all those jihadis will just keep their thumbs above their detonators until Thanksgiving, certainly.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I believe the correct pc term is differently-abled.

How about "damned fool"?

[Mustang0302]

Rick, what's a "Kendonesian"?

Charlie, what's a "National SociaLutheran?"

BTW, got a link to document George Jo Hennard was a Christian (other than him being a typical white person)?

I really, really, really hate bigotry.

[narciso]

He was a low rent thug, like Roeder the Montana militiaman, Van Bruenn the kidnapper, the ex con from Yemen, one sees a pattern here, you could throw in James Huberty and our very own Kendall
contribution, Matix & Platt from 1986

[Ann]

Charlie:

Here is some more "damned fool":

In an interview with Roland Martin, Michael Steele, the RNC Chair, said the following:

MARTIN: But your candidates got to talk to them. One of the criticisms I’ve always had is Republicans — white Republicans — have been scared of black folks.

STEELE: You’re absolutely right. I mean I’ve been in the room and they’ve been scared of me.

and

Chris Matthews on the incident of Maj. Nidal M. Hasan at Ft. Hood:

He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al Qaeda. Is that the point at which you say, ‘This guy is dangerous?' That's not a crime to call up al Qaeda, is it? Is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?"

Connect the dots, Ha!, they can't color within the the lines!

[narciso]

That's too much stupidity, Ann, does anybody brief Steele before these things. first of all why go on with Roland Martin, they only have ratings compared to the test pattern at HLN. Matthews is beyond parody

[daddy]

The Bioethecist up above talks more intellectual than you guys.

But not to worry! Here, this ">http://chronicle.com/blogPost/How-to-Talk-Like-an/8739/"> website "How To Talk Like An Intellectual," comes to the rescue.

F'er instance, 'Kendosian' and 'socioLutheran'.

I plug them into the ">http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/randomsentence/write-sentence.htm"> Academic Sentence Generator, (along with some other option selections), and look what spits out:

"The Kendosian reification of normative value(s) is strictly congruent with the socioLutheran's historicization of print culture." Woo Hoo!

Or how 'bout TM's effort on 'Chinese carburetors' and 'statistics.'

1 from column A, 1 from column B, press enter, and voila:

"The statistical nature of linguistic constructions of post-capitalist hegemony invests itself in the ideology of the Chinese carburetor specular economy."

Yippee, look at me, I'm Tom Friedman!
Step aside Krugman, where's my Pulitzer?

[Ann]

Narciso:

On top of that, we celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall while our President and our elected leaders build one for us. The very people that have risen to the top of our nation want to change the system that got them there.

I had high hopes for Steele. But if he wants to further the idea that Republicans are scared of black men and women then he needs to resign, now!

[daveinboca]

KTK could be a clone of that guy in Pittsburgh who couldn't get a date or even Maj. Nidal Hasan dude who "snapped" according to Newsweak's Evan Thomas. I wonder if KTK is so into bioethics, what his opinion would be on Major Hasan's lecture on environmental ethics last year at advanced grad school, you know, the lecture he gave about the moral validity of suicide bombers!!

That little episode actually moved some of his classmates to remark to Army security about his mental or political dependability. However, apparently, the Army doesn't consider such behavior worthy of further investigation, or is so completely cowed by PC platitidinous watchpuppies that it let his talk go unheeded and immediately after his lecture, he was promoted to Major!

OERs in my day would have at least held back his promotion for a year or two!

KTK, what are your bioethics on suicide bombing?

[glasater]

Cruised over to KTK's web site--with tip jar (he should pay people to read his blog by the way) and for some reason the first post I ran into got me laughing:

I’m pleased to say Sufficient Scruples is back in the saddle and riding hard . . . or . . . something like that. The six of you who check in here semi-regularly will have noticed that nothing has been posted in the past 4 months (and little enough prior to that). The reason was some sort of bizarre problem with WordPress that simply wouldn’t let me post to my own blog, and which I couldn’t resolve even by upgrading. I’m still not sure what all happened, but it seems to have resolved itself. (I have no idea what happened in either case.) I’m sorry to have been off the air. Look for more content here, starting now.

Oh Dear!

[pops]

Completely off topic.... I found it shocking that the FBI admits that Hasan was communicating with the 911 Imam and they did nothing.

It appears that the FBI excuse is that his e-mails were not related to Islamic radical terrorist actions.

THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE BS! They are partly responsible for the deaths in Texas.

Can you imagine if a suspect was communicating with Charles Manson and the FBI said, well their communication was just about pork recipes. HELLO!

Its the fact they are communicating at all that is the problem and what it shows about their mindset to reach out to such a person about any subject!

[daddy]

Yippee, finally we Yank's get to look down our noses at those unctuous Northern Europeans.

This">http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=928561">This story tells us that "The Danish army admitted on Sunday that a leading figure in Denmark's neo-Nazi party and an admirer of Adolf Hitler is serving in the military unit responsible for protecting the royal family."

The nerve of those Danes. Don't they know that it is politically incorrect to publicly "out" a military individual who just so happens to be anti the country and anti democracy and a devotee of a dead mass murder? Didn't they consider the ramifications to this soldier's delicate psyche of revealing his personal murderous beliefs? And didn't they even consider the potential backlash
repercussions that might happen to this soldier and his soul mates by revealing his devotion to this world famous dead advocate of genocide?

Where, I ask, is the multicultural compassion that is so frequently demanded of we American's?

Well I'll have you know Denmark, that we American's allow our militant, murderous soldiers to rant and rave to their hearts content about mass murder of their compatriots, and we don't even bat an eye about it, even after we've verified they've been in contact with Al Qaida Imam's and buying 1100 dollar handguns and giving other soldiers professional lectures with bullet points like "we love death more than you love life." That's how non-judgmental we are. Yet you cowards can't even handle a simple little "Heil Hitler" without publicizing it, while we 'unsophisticated' American's can handle a torrent of "Allah Akbar's" without even batting an eye.

Bah, you disgust me. Go print some more Mohammed Cartoons, you intolerant bigots. We've got our Yale presses instead, and as all 'enlightened' folks know, a thousand words on a Mohammed cartoon's is worth way more than a picture.

I pity you unsophisticates.

[Captain Hate]

It appears that the FBI excuse is that his e-mails were not related to Islamic radical terrorist actions.

Maybe Jamie Gorelick can be part of a panel investigating this, assuming she can take time off from defending the Duke administration for valuing the fantasies of drug-addled prostitutes (one without tenure in addition to 88 faculty members) over the rights of regular students.

[Janet]

((Connect the dots, Ha!, they can't color within the the lines!))

Ann, this is painfully true. There is a video of one of our military guys giving a "curse lecture" to a group of lazy Iraqi police recruits....we could use that young man to whip Congress and the MSM into shape!

a quote - "You know why I'm p----- off?" he shouts at one point. "I come down here with my soldiers to try to train you, and you're trying to f------ kill Americans, you're trying to kill your fellow f------ Iraqis, 'cuz you got no f------ backbone."

[DebinNC]

AP reports that... because the exchanged emails didn't threaten or advocate violence, the Task Force investigating Hasan "could not" proceed further. I wonder if that barrier was erected after the Dems took over in 2007 or more recently by Obama? Did the investigation end at that point or was it ongoing?

[DebinNC]

Hmm... It sounds like the FBI is going to blame Bush/NRA reporting restrictions for preventing them from learning of Hasan's gun buys and preventing the massacre.

[Mustang0302]

Hasan's good buddy:

“He’s one of the most popular figures among hard-line, English-speaking jihadis around the world,” said Jarret Brachman, the author of “Global Jihadism” and a terrorism consultant to the government.

Mr. Brachman said Mr. Awlaki was especially appealing to young Muslims who are curious about radical ideas but not yet committed. “He’s American, he’s funny, and he speaks in a very understandable way,” Mr. Brachman said.

Hi-larious.

[Ignatz]

--It sounds like the FBI is going to blame Bush/NRA reporting restrictions for preventing them from learning of Hasan's gun buys and preventing the massacre.--

Yeah, right:

"cut off the infidels' heads and pour boiling oil down their throats" = nothing to investigate here, move along.

A guy in the Army buys a gun = let's spring into action, boys, and stop this lunatic.

[Mustang0302]

Backlash?

[clarice]

Scott Ott in Washington Examiner:
"Journalists across the nation, moved by the plight of a troubled Muslim psychiatrist whose "understandable emotional turmoil" broke out in gunfire last week at Fort Hood, Texas, will hold a major fundraising event in the coming weeks in honor of the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

News coverage of the tragedy sparked reporters and anchors in the mainstream media to "reach out to Hasan in love and brotherhood because his righteous indignation at the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led him to express his outrage in the only avenue open to a non-journalist," according to an unnamed organizer of the upcoming charity event.

"We in the free press naturally see Hasan's actions as a First Amendment issue," the source said. "As a disadvantaged Muslim American, and captive of the U.S. military, Hasan's options for speaking truth to power were quite limited. He did what he could within his means, and now he's being punished for this expression of free speech."

The event will include a bevy of "A-List" news media figures manning the phones to receive contributions toward establishment of a graduate school that will train disenchanted members of the military to solve their problems with a computer keyboard, rather than with a semi-automatic handgun.

In a news release announcing plans for the fundraiser, the Society of Professional Journalist-Celebrities said, "As Major Hasan lies grievously wounded, cut down in the prime of his life by a police officer whose sworn duty is to protect and serve him, we journalists will do what we can to guard future Hasans from the brutality of an oppressive regime."

"We can't help but think how things would have been different if, instead of a handgun, Hasan would have had a press pass and a laptop computer," the group said. "He still could have accomplished his purposes, and he wouldn't be strapped to a gurney, fighting for his life right now. Rather, he could walk right into the White House or Pentagon press rooms and take the fight to the enemy like the rest of us do every day."

[narciso]

Great, he's the Jon Stewart of jihad, well that would imply that Stewart was funny, my bad

[Mustang0302]

A guy in the Army buys a gun = let's spring into action, boys, and stop this lunatic.

Hasan was planning to go hunting. Isn't that one of the hoplophobes' officially-grudgingly-approved justifications for gun ownership?

[MTF]

KTK is certainly verbose, argumentative and pedantic. Clarice says he's a graduate student, and presuably a man hoping to someday become an academic with guaranteed lifetime employment, a state pension and cadillac-plan medical benefits. Exactly the sort of person to lecture the rest of the benighted worker bees of the world! However he does make one obvious point, by implication, and that is that tax policy affects behavior. If medical plan costs were taxed as compensation, consumers would clearly be more aggressive about negotiating rates, and would demand more service at less cost. Beyond that point, though, he's just yammering.

[clarice]

Of course, had he just said that without the Internationale playing in the background and the gratuitous insults, who'd have disagreed, mtf?

I did love the sentencew generator , daddy.

[Rob Crawford]

It's the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free.

Anyone else tired of the argument that if government doesn't charge for it, it's an expense for government?

By that "logic", every penny in your paycheck is a government "expense".