Tax Cut Denialism, With A Freudian Slip

Paul Krugman explains that he was right and Evil Righties were wrong about the response to the financial collapse of 2008. But the Times delivers a lovely correction of a Freudian slip, and Krugman continues to wear his Big Government blinders in contradiction of his own earlier analysis.

Slips first:

Correction: May 2, 2014 

An earlier version of the web summary with this column pointed out that few economists saw the fiscal crisis coming. The crisis should have been referred to as a financial crisis.

It was not now, has never been and never will be a fiscal crisis! Fears that out-of-control spending will put us on the road to Argentina are soooo 2003 and subsequently sorta-kinda repudiated.

Let's switch to Krugman's ongoing tax-cut denialism of the logic of his own arguments. From the recent column:

...since the fall of Lehman Brothers, basic textbook macroeconomics has performed very well.

...

In what sense did economics work well? Economists who took their own textbooks seriously quickly diagnosed the nature of our economic malaise: We were suffering from inadequate demand. The financial crisis and the housing bust created an environment in which everyone was trying to spend less, but my spending is your income and your spending is my income, so when everyone tries to cut spending at the same time the result is an overall decline in incomes and a depressed economy. And we know (or should know) that depressed economies behave quite differently from economies that are at or near full employment.

For example, many seemingly knowledgeable people — bankers, business leaders, public officials — warned that budget deficits would lead to soaring interest rates and inflation. But economists knew that such warnings, which might have made sense under normal conditions, were way off base under the conditions we actually faced. Sure enough, interest and inflation rates stayed low.

And the diagnosis of our troubles as stemming from inadequate demand had clear policy implications: as long as lack of demand was the problem, we would be living in a world in which the usual rules didn’t apply. In particular, this was no time to worry about budget deficits and cut spending, which would only deepen the depression. When John Boehner, then the House minority leader, declared in early 2009 that since American families were having to tighten their belts, the government should tighten its belt, too, people like me cringed; his remarks betrayed his economic ignorance. We needed more government spending, not less, to fill the hole left by inadequate private demand.

What Krugman can't bring himself to write is that cutting taxes can serve as well as increasing government spending. The gist - if the tax cuts are spent, then it represents a government funded boost to demand; if they are saved, they help repair household private sector balance sheets by substituting public for private debt.

In earlier writings Krugman has acknowledged the private sector balance sheet problem:

Why is recovery from a financial crisis slow? Financial crises are preceded by credit bubbles; when those bubbles burst, many families and/or companies are left with high levels of debt, which force them to slash their spending. This slashed spending, in turn, depresses the economy as a whole.

And the usual response to recession, cutting interest rates to encourage spending, isn’t adequate. Many families simply can’t spend more, and interest rates can be cut only so far — namely, to zero but not below.

Does this mean that nothing can be done to avoid a protracted slump after a financial crisis? No, it just means that you have to do more than just cut interest rates. In particular, what the economy really needs after a financial crisis is a temporary increase in government spending, to sustain employment while the private sector repairs its balance sheet.

To be fair, Krugman resisted the notion in the quoted piece that cutting taxes could lead to balance sheet repair, so his denialism is consistent. he provided more on the private debt problem here:

Unfortunately, the economy didn’t come roaring back. Why?

The best explanation, I think, lies in the debt overhang. For the most part, even those who correctly diagnosed a housing bubble failed to notice or at least to acknowledge the importance of the sharp rise in household debt that accompanied the bubble

...

And I would argue that this debt overhang has held back spending even though financial markets are operating more or less normally again.

Yet tax cuts that helped reduce that private debt bubble wouldn't speed a recovery?

Oddly, when the political jockeying for the 2009 stimulus was underway, Krugman briefly favored some tax cuts. This is Jan 6, 2009:

How much do tax cuts and spending raise GDP? The widely cited estimates of Mark Zandi of Economy.com indicate a multiplier of around 1.5 for spending, with widely varying estimates for tax cuts. Payroll tax cuts, which make up about half the Obama proposal, are pretty good, with a multiplier of 1.29; business tax cuts, which make up the rest, are much less effective.

But by Jan 11 "pretty good" had changed to "ineffective":

First, Mr. Obama should scrap his proposal for $150 billion in business tax cuts, which would do little to help the economy. Ideally he’d scrap the proposed $150 billion payroll tax cut as well, though I’m aware that it was a campaign promise.

Money not squandered on ineffective tax cuts could be used to provide further relief to Americans in distress — enhanced unemployment benefits, expanded Medicaid and more. 

Whatever. I puzzled over Krugman's notion that temporary tax cuts don't spur permanent long-term demand but temporary increases in spending do back in the day. A week later I scratched my head over his insistence that putting more money in people's pockets by way of a helicopter drop (or, heaven forbid, a tax cut) could not be stimulative but extending unemployment insurance could be. And (IIRC, after some emailing to intermediaries) Krugman got pushed back to a modest endorsement of payroll tax cuts.

Left unaddressed is the mix of spending versus saving when the Feds hand out money to the states to boost demand. Krugman is confident that tax cuts to "the rich" will simply be saved rather than spent and hence provide little stimulation. But economist John Taylor of Stanford found that states and municipalities tried to save today to smooth their budget problems over the next several years:

Individuals and families largely saved the transfers and tax rebates. The federal government increased purchases, but by only an immaterial amount. State and local governments used the stimulus grants to reduce their net borrowing (largely by acquiring more financial assets) rather than to increase expenditures, and they shifted expenditures away from purchases toward transfers. Some argue that the economy would have been worse off without these stimulus packages, but the results do not support that view.

More on that here:

The money sent to the states, meanwhile, didn't really increase infrastructure spending. If a state already had a light-rail project under way, it just borrowed less and used some of the federal money instead -- you didn't see more light-rail projects.

Manipulating fungible cash amongst varied short and long term accounts is a bedrock of state and municipal finance in this country; the ideas that sending Federal money to a state (even with earmarks) will force them to spend "that money" on a project rather than re-jiggle all their other accounts so that they spend and save as they want is naive.

 Hmm. The dog barks, the day passes...

Comments

[Danube on iPad]

Oh nooo....

[Captain Hate]

Rather than yammer about the stupidity of Kruggy, I'll point out that in 2000 and 2014 Dirk and Duncan have squared off in the playoffs as arguably the best players on their teams. Pretty remarkable in this day and age that they've both stayed with the same clubs and in Duncan's case has played for the same head coach. I'm kind of surprised the league hasn't made a bigger deal about that since both are first ballot HOFers in the same state.

[4JackisBack!2 (On His iPhone)]

Krugman is to TM what the Koch brothers are to Dingy Harry Reid.

/at theater with Frederick and 3 of his friends waiting for Spidey 2 in 3D to start

[narciso]

Yes, you know he's a crook, but his 'honey badger' style is refreshing,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/02/david-rivera-running-for-congress_n_5253534.html

[MaxB]

"...but the results do not support that view."

To Paul Krugman and other liberals, those words might just as well have been written in Klingon. Liberal ideas, policies, theories are never based on results, history, or data. They are based on they same childish fantasies most of us had as middle-schoolers. It was results, history, and data that caused Conservatives to give up those fantasies.

[Stephanie spring sprung baseballs back umm ummm umm]

Results don't matter. It's your intentions that count.

Don't you want the poor to have a cellphone for emergencies you heartless penny counter?

[glasater]

On a money/financial topic and for our Chi town friend I can now report that after two and a half years we've finally gotten the last 'chunk' of the money we were owed in the MF Global bankruptcy.

Can't begin to write in this forum what an 'education' that whole experience has been.
The below link gives an idea of the character of Corzine though. And I have some serious reservations that the corruption can ever be cleaned out in the CFTC or the SEC for that matter.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304178104579534033150753284

[narciso]

Congrats, glasater;

Some truths are verboten;

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579521482247869874?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303380004579521482247869874.html#

[GMax]

Michael Barone continually tells us demographics that no one else seems to notice or report. Today in the Wash Examiner he notes this:

party identification among millennials age 23 to 29 is 48 or 49 percent Democratic and 28 to 30 percent Republican -- a big lead for Democrats.

Among those 21 and 22, it’s 44 percent Democratic and 32 percent Republican. But those 18 to 20 are Democratic over Republican by only a 41 to 38 percent margin. That seems likely to be at the edge of statistical significance. And it’s a big difference from the older millennials.

The older millennials age 23 to 27 turned 18 between 2003 and 2009, the Bush years. The youngest Millennials age 18 to 20 turned 18 between 2012 and this year, the later Obama years.

[GMax]

And I would put this one in the category of Dead Woman Walking:

the latest version of Elon’s poll, from April 2014, the first-term senator finds herself underwater: Hagan has seen her approval drop to 34 percent, while her disapproval has jumped a whopping 14 points to 46 percent

Elon had her a net positive in 2013. Elon is a private University in NC, and I have no reason to believe their polls would not be typical of University polls, skewed towards better results for Democrats than actually ever happen at the ballot box.

[Jeff Dobbs]

I love the Elon campus.

[matt]

Any system which recycles money and takes 20-30% off the top for administration is inherently inefficient at delivering good and services.

Any system that spends money profligately and unwisely, and then borrows far in excess of its ability to repay that debt is doomed.

By the way, get a copy of today's WSJ if you haven't already. It may be one of the best daily papers ever written as a whole. So fascinating stuff; a review of the third and final volume of a biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II; a tremendous and highly influential review by Charles Murray of a very important new book called A troublesome Inheritance". It completely debunks the prevailing social science of race, showing that the genetic differences between races are indeed profound.

It was written by Nicholas Wade, the former science editor of the NYT, so it is going to stir up a hornet's nest. But the science is sound. This book is going to cause a seismic shift in how we think about race and genetics and how we, as humans, have propensities for certain abilities or afflictions.

Frankly, I'm happy with a nation of mutts.

And there's a bunch more, including a wonderful Noonan piece comparing the leadership of St. John Paul II and the lack thereof of Obama. The WSJ is rapidly occupying the journalistic high ground formerly owned by the NYT.

[narciso]

I linked it at 1;23, matt, because someone was verklempt that Murray would review such a thing,

[Jeff Dobbs]

A local guy was running the Boston Marathon when the bombing happened. He went back and finished this year...

Clark Doggett got around last week to finishing something he'd started a year earlier - the Boston Marathon.

Doggett, 71, a Summerfield resident, was competing in the 2013 Boston Marathon when terrorists detonated bombs near the finish line, bringing the race to a halt.

Doggett completed about 25 miles of the 26.2-mile race, but wasn't allowed to cross the finish line. That changed this year when he returned to Boston with his wife Jane, and daughter, Beth Kaplan.
...
Though he didn't set any records in running this year's Boston race (he finished in five hours and 44 minutes), Doggett said that's okay.
...
"The crowd was unbelievable," said Kaplan. "There was something about watching it unfold before you with 1 million of your closest friends that will have you yelling and laughing one minute and crying and bawling the next. We saw runners cheering and running like they could run 50 more miles. We saw runners that were literally crawling to the finish line. I saw a father stop and kiss his wife while his daughter reached up and rubbed his face. If you weren't shedding a few tears then, you just weren't human.

"And then, the moment I had been waiting for all day, my Dad came around the corner looking strong, looking like a marathon runner," Kaplan continued. "And we all screamed a little harder. Boston you are strong!"

[Jim Eagle]

Good movie:Spidey 2 especially if you see with 4 10-11 year olds so they can tell you what the hell is going on.

[Jane]

Gee Hit, that made me cry.

[Jeff Dobbs]

I cried too, Jane. Beth is a friend of a friend.

[Trapped in Chiraq]

Chicago destroys all good....

Chicago Tribune ( May 3, 2014 )

"A woman who died after the taxi in which she was riding was hit by a suspected drunken driver going the wrong way on Lake Shore Drive was about to graduate from University of Chicago Law School, authorities said this afternoon.

Charges are pending against the driver, whose vehicle collided with the taxi, killing Laura Anne LaPlante, of Hancock, N.H., and injuring himself and two others, police said.

"It is with profound sadness" that I tell you that LaPlante died, said University of Chicago Law School Dean Michael H. Schill in a written statement obtained by the Tribune. "This is a heart-rending loss."

LaPlante was the president of the Federalist Society at the school, treasurer for the Law School Republicans, an active member of the St. Thomas More Society, the Law Women's Caucus and the Edmund Burke Society, and had planned to join the Boston law firm WilmerHale as an associate in the fall after working there last summer as an associate, Schill said.

Schill said she was well known at the University of Chicago Law School for her "warmth and kindness " and was always ready to volunteer her help for either school events or friends -- "always with a smile for everyone.""

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-lake-shore-drive-crash-20140502,0,6024795.story

[jimmyk]

And there's a bunch more

Matt didn't dare mention the cover article of the "Review" section on fat, and the "dubious science behind the anti-fat crusade."

[Captain Hate]

I thought the WSJ occupied the journalistic high ground since at least the 70s.

[Captain Hate]

Does anybody here like the musical group White Denim? They're from Austin so maybe Porch has some insight.

[Jeff Dobbs]

White Denim? That sounds racist.

[Miss Marple]

The radio was on in the bedroom and I heard some sports announcing but couldn't hear the words.

It occurs to me I can tell auto race announcing from basketball simply by the tone and rhythm of the announcers.

Time to turn on the Derby coverage!

[Jeff Dobbs]

Horse racing is not a sport because the jockey could smoke while riding.

[sbw]

Time to turn on the Derby coverage!

Actually, 6:23:30 is the time to turn on Derby coverage to avoid NBC's extravapalooza, manned by Tara Lupinsky and Jonny Wier -- or however their names are spelled.

[Jim Eagle]

DoT will probably be able to add more detail to this, but lets remember:

May 3, 1942, the first day of modern navy engagements in history is called the Battle of the Coral Sea. A Japanese invasion force succeeded in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan's defensive perimeter.

The US Navy, having broken Japan's secret war code and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese armada. Four days of battles between Japanese and American aircraft carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 Americans warplanes destroyed. This confrontation, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, marked the first air-naval battle in history, as none of the carriers fired at each other, allowing the planes taking off from their decks to do the battling. Among the casualties was the American carrier Lexington (CV2) which suffered such extensive aerial damage that it had to be sunk by its own crew. Two hundred sixteen Lexington crewmen died as a result of the Japanese aerial bombardment.

Although Japan continued on to occupy all of the Solomon Islands, its victory was a Pyrrhic one: the cost in experienced pilots and aircraft carriers was so great that Japan had to cancel its expedition to Port Moresby, Papua, as well as other South Pacific targets.

[Miss Marple]

Touche, hit and run! Touche!

I declare you the winner of JOM today! LOL!

[Jim Eagle]

But do you consider the horse an athlete? To some purists out there Secretariat is considered the most impressive ahtlete in the 20th century.t

BTW, pound for pound jockeys are probably the best and most fitted athletes in sport. They have forearms, wrists, thighs and calves of steel.

[Clarice Feldman]

Lovely piece, hit. Still if the Boston PD hadn't been so dense the people of Boston wouldn't have had this tragedy .

[Miss Marple]

I consider both horse and jockey athletes.

Calvin Borel is riding a middling long shot, Ride on Curlin.

I am going with that since none of the others seem particularly interesting.

[jimmyk]

The horse is not an athlete because the horse could smoke and compete at the same time.

[Jim Eagle]

Gotta go with Samraat, who is a Southampton Town (Watermill) product. The owner is the guy who runs Barnes and Noble and long time resident. He was raised and trained in Watermill. He is like 14 to 1 but hey, you go with home cooking every time.

[Miss Marple]

Borel's horse is 15-1, and the only reason I picked him was Borel.

Jack, your choice is just as good with slightly better odds.

Although I love to watch horse racing, I know next to nothing about betting or picking a winner.

My grandad could read the racing form like a pro. I wish I had learned from him!

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

--manned by Tara Lupinsky and Jonny Wier--

I'll pass without comment the dubious verb choice at the start, but do note toward the end of the sentence the presence of not only a silent but an invisible "Q".

[GMax]

I am told in a case that went before the Supreme Court around 1935 known as Jurnal V MacCracken the court held that each house of Congress indeed has the right to hold someone in contempt and to even jail them for the remainder of the legislative session. Given all of the smoke around Lerner and now Benghazi, I expect that needs to be threatened to some folks to make them quit hiding and withholding documents.

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

The extremely attractive Josie Cotton sings the official anthem for today's Derby; Johnny are you Queer?

[Jane]

I can't figure out why they haven't swept all the hard drives so no one can find a damn thing until they are out of office.

[GMax]

This is what happens when you ignor the
American people:

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley is running neck-and-neck with Republican challenger Monica Wehby, according to a new Daily Caller/Vox Populi Polling survey of registered voters in the state.

Wehby, a Portland-based pediatric neurosurgeon, received the support of 40 percent of respondents, while an additional five percent say they are leaning towards supporting the first-time candidate. Merkley, who was elected to the Senate in 2008, garners the support of just 39 percent of respondents, with two percent saying they lean towards supporting him.

Fourteen percent of voters said they do not know whom they would support.

According to Vox Populi’s Brent Seaborn, the poll shows that “the Senate race in Oregon is very much in play for Republicans.”

The poll also indicates that a plurality of voters in the deep-blue state see Obamacare as a mostly failed venture. Forty-six percent of respondents said Obamacare and Cover Oregon, the state’s disastrously flawed health care exchange, were failures, while 17 percent said they were successes, and 37 percent said they were “somewhere in between.”

[Miss Marple]

Walkover beginning!

[Extraneus]

Keynesian economics is like Islam.

Say a guy has a hankering for 9-year-old girls and multiple sex slaves. Most people would think the guy a pervert who should be locked up, but if he claims that Mohammed's example is a spiritual ideal, he can argue for pedophilia and sex slavery in a solemn, moral, religious way. And who can argue with a person's religion?

Similarly, say a guy has a hankering for confiscatory taxation, vote buying, government power, socialism, and the personal skimming of taxpayer lucre. All he has to do is claim that he believes, truly believes, in a theory called Keynesian economics!

Either way, it's all about the stimulation.

[GMax]

The NYT tries to tamp down the suicides in their subscriber base come November by letting their readers know now that turnout machine aint gonna save em:

Much of the optimism on Democratic turnout stems from Mr. Obama’s successful turnout operation in 2012, or from experiments showing large increases in turnout when voters receive targeted mailers or contacts. But political scientists and campaign operatives found that even Mr. Obama’s impressive ground operation was worth less than one point in his presidential elections.

[Extraneus]

I can't figure out why they haven't swept all the hard drives so no one can find a damn thing until they are out of office.

I'm pretty sure they use an email system such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange, both of which store all emails on backed-up central servers, Jane. The emails aren't stored on their hard drives.

[peter]

jib, my niece is rooting for the New York horse for that very reason.

[pagar]

http://shoebat.com/2014/05/03/distribution-list-smoking-gun-benghazi-email-included-muslim-brotherhood-agent/

"It is a mystery how Alhassani slipped through the cracks to become a Special Assistant to the Office of the Chief of Staff, National Security Council Staff, and Executive Office of the President. It is unknown why a few hours before the Benghazi attack, Alhassani met in the White House with Samir Mayekar, a George Soros ‘fellow’ for an unscheduled visit."

Amazing!

[Clarice Feldman]

Wehby, a physician, has the most remarkable campaign film--it's a mother talking about how Wehby saved her child when others physicians had told her there was no chance and she should abort. It's a masterpiece. I hope she wins BIG.

[Jane]

I'm pretty sure they use an email system such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange, both of which store all emails on backed-up central servers, Jane. The emails aren't stored on their hard drives.

Well then I'm surprise they haven't swept the central servers Ex. I have no idea what that means but this administration is as dishonest as they come.

[Miss Marple]

If Borel wins on Ride on Curlin, he will enter the field of greatest jockeys of all time.

[narciso]

Patterico, has noticed a little known detail, re the disposition of the President, at the time of September 11th, he met with three debate advisors, around the time he was supposedly meeting with Panetta, re the attack on the Embassy compound

[Miss Marple]

narciso,

The dogs are on the hunt!

More will be revealed.

[Jim Eagle]

Valiant attempt. At leaset not last. No kick at the end.

[MaxB]

"...but this administration is as dishonest as they come."

Yep, and no doubt they would tamper with said servers if they could. WH email is administered by outside contractors. Last I heard it was Boeing.

[Jim Eagle]

pagar,

More likely his job was as spiritual advisor to the POTUS.

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

It's good to have ya posting again, Extraneus.

[Captain Hate]

But political scientists and campaign operatives found that even Mr. Obama’s impressive ground operation was worth less than one point in his presidential elections.

[Gabe] Hey guys, we have all this wowie zowie data this time. And servers!!11! [/Malor]

[pagar]

JiB, Doesn't look like he did much better than Rev Wright.

[Miss Marple]

Bob Costas is REALLY short!

As in gnome short!

HA!

[Extraneus]

Rutgers reportedly considering dropping rice from on-campus menus and having all bushes removed.

— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) May 3, 2014

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

--As in gnome short!--

Gremlin genus I believe.

[Extraneus]

Good to "see" you too, Janet!

[matt]

I think ext's comment is right up there.

Like I said, today's edition of the Journal demonstrates just how good a paper can be. The WSJ's expansion into lifestyle and especially the Review section are simply amazing.

Sometimes it's meh, but often it comes close to brilliance. The one thing I hate is the book reviews. Querida gets very upset when she sees the Alibris or Amazon deliveries the week after a good section.

The whole Jonny Weir thing creeps me out. In the film The 5th Element there is a character like his, and there have been other movies of the years with the over the top transvestites or queens.Now we are forced to put up with it in the sports section.

Back in the early 90's I fought a losing battle against the expansion of figure skating in the Olympics. It is the most catty, vicious and nasty crew I have ever seen. It would make a great black comedy. I remember driving with one of our salesmen in Georgia when the news that Nancy Kerrigan had been whacked with a lead pipe in the study and my immediate reaction was that it was another skater.

And for that society was forced to endure naked Tonya Harding pics for years afterwards. Blech.

Anyway, Buick had done all of the research and said that ice skating brings in women, who spend huge amounts of the family budget and the rest was history. One of the reasons I got out. Friggin commercialism and greed.

[Danube on iPad]

"...Congress indeed has the right to hold someone in contempt and to even jail them"

There is an actual jail in the basement of the capitol for that purpose. I understand that it hasn't been used since about the time of that Court case.

[Rick B]

Wehby on Issues

I'm a little concerned about having a brain surgeon in the Senate. The temptation to attempt twenty or thirty absolutely no risk brain transplants will be very hard for her to resist.

[Jeff Dobbs]

Jane:
Well then I'm surprise they haven't swept the central servers Ex. I have no idea what that means but this administration is as dishonest as they come.

Does the name Richard Windsor mean anything to you?

And . . . we do remember that this is part of what the left accused Bush of, right?

[narciso]

It really is striking how connected Al Hassani, is, to the Syrian Emergency Task Force, through one figure, to the ISB, which leads to the T-Dawg brothers.

[Captain Hate]

The WSJ's expansion into lifestyle and especially the Review section are simply amazing.

Sometimes it's meh, but often it comes close to brilliance. The one thing I hate is the book reviews. Querida gets very upset when she sees the Alibris or Amazon deliveries the week after a good section.

Their rock reviewer, Jim Fusilli, keeps me informed of new stuff so I don't have to plow through tons of sludge to find a gem. Although I let my subscription lapse I still pick up the friday and weekend editions, specifically for the entertainment sections. Morgenstern's pretty good on movies too.

[narciso]

When they are good, like Matt Ridley dispatching the army of strawmen, re fracking
and the Sky Dragon scam last week, they are first rate,

[Jim Eagle]

It is exactly this kind of sophomoric trash disguised as intelligent opinion that made me drop the print media. MoDo has to be the most vapid piece of language arts practioners in the world. She makes a living with this kind of clap trap is another indicator of how far we have fallen as society. If Michael Bechloss is correct that Champ is the "smartest president to ever serve" (hear that Tom Jefferson?) than that only proves we are the most stupid audience for those remarks.

[Janet - - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/05/01/benghazi-follow-up-who-told-ben-rhodes-to-lie-about-u-tube-video-our-research-provides-the-answer/

adding details to the Benghazi timeline

[Janet - - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

They think Rhodes GOALS came from - "The impetus of the instructions to Communications Director, Ben Rhodes, came from the man who is not only close to Obama, but was with him in the Oval Office as the crisis unfolded and who is now his Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough.

[Captain Hate]

Welp it looks like the Pacers will somehow advance to round 2.

[narciso]

'Friends don't let Friends' take Mo Dowd seriously, McDonough was known as the other minder for General Jones, and one of the architects of the outreach to the Brotherhood,

[narciso]

Chaos theory, seems to be the operating principle, Captain,

[Miss Marple]

Attention Obama and Michelle, Jay Carney, and assorted people on the dias:

The hymns of the various military services are not dinner music which you laugh and chat during.

Another disgrace.

[Jane]

Shit, Hit!

[Captain Hate]

Speaking of chaos, I just heard on the radio that the NBA plans on announcing a CEO to oversee the Clip Joint's day to day operations. Is that even legal when Sterling still owns it? I know the league has run a couple teams when the owners had financial problems and they ran it until there was a legit buyer but that's not what this situation is at all. I'm sure Sterling has an armada of sharks to fight this in court.

[matt]

California Chrome, baby!!!

I had not heard of him until one of the local papers told his rags to riches story. His dam was a $8,000 or so claimer and his sire was not that special. Sometimes a horse is just born with the right stuff.

We'll see how he does in the Preakness.

[Clarice Feldman]

I like Morgenstern's reviews, too. I have to think that style section was expanded to further capture NYT readers.

[GMax]

Lets calculate the returns. $10,000 total investment

Turns down $6 MM for a 50% interest.

$10,000 to $12 MM!!

My HP 12 C just started smoking and quit calculating.

[narciso]

Could be 'round up the usual suspects;

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/05/breaking-11-terrorists-with-links-to-al-qaeda-arrested-for-disappearance-of-flight-mh370/

[Captain Hate]

Morgenstern piqued my interest in Winters Bone and the rest is history. I like how he recycles DVD recs that are similar to the new releases being reviewed. Yesterday he listed Boy A for at least the second time, which I highly recommend.

[pagar]

Still unknown apparently!

http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/05/03/the-question-remains-where-are-the-benghazi-survivors/

[Miss Marple]

pagar, Where are they? And where is Stephens diary? And where are those documents removed from Muslim Brotherhood HQ?

Lots of questions need to be answered!

[narciso]

they probably sent them to Guam, like those failed Iraq plotters, were exiled to

[GMax]

Did it tip over from all the extra weight, I hear there was some concern expressed about that.

[narciso]

the Brotherhood's documents were published in an Egyptian paper, including the ties to Morsi,

[Miss Marple]

narciso,

Right as you posted that, I got an order in my eBay store from Guam.

Cue Twilight Zone music!

[Sue]

I was watching the pre-race activities and couldn't really take it when they had interviews with that gawd awful hat on Johnny Weir.

[Sue]

I was pulling for Uncle Sigh.

[Sue]

My grammar needs some work. They didn't really interview a hat.

[Stephanie spring sprung baseballs back umm ummm umm]

MM, I've been meaning to ask if you would post your store url.

I love antiques, nicnacs and assorted old things. Just recently purchased a bugs bunny baseball pitcher 3d thingy for the game room wall that looks 40-50s era and it's about 3 ft high. No idea if it was a deal or not, but I liked it.

[Danube on iPad]

NBA may have a real problem:

http://msn.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/nba-lacks-the-authority-to-force-donald-sterling-to-sell-the-clippers-050114

If Sterling sues, he'll get the TRO as a matter of course. The test will come 17 days later when the court either grants or denies the Preliminary Injunction. If it grants it, this thing goes on for a long, long time. My guess is that the court will grant the PI.

We could have quite a circus coming up. Can the league even get the audio into evidence?

[narciso]

all hat and no cattle, sue, Judge Jeanine, points out the President dismisses the paramilitary protester in Slaviansk, surface to air missiles and all, in the way he didn't with Benghazi,

[Stephanie spring sprung baseballs back umm ummm umm]

The IQ was about the same, Sue.

[Jim Eagle]

Looks like the Derby has joined figure skating as the realm of chicks and gays. Wonder how many man caves tuned in? You know its kaput when prosecco instead of Bud Light is the sponsor of choice.

[Janet - - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

My grammar needs some work. They didn't really interview a hat.

hahahaaa! Too funny!

[Miss Marple]

Stephanie, I don't post my eBay store address here because of my fears that malicious leftists will harass me and file complaints.

If you send me an email at christa dot cooper at comcast dot net, I will give you the store name and how to find it.

[narciso]

This is garbage, how about liquidating a player's assets in the unlikely event they commit an assault, are involved in a DUI, get caught in a rape investigation, you know things that never happen in the NFL or NBA?

[Jim Eagle]

For your leisurely pleasure, WWI in pictures.

Remember it was the "great war" to "end all wars". Look at these photos and picture modern day Ukraine, Syria or even Israel.

[rich@gmu]

at least there was a race at Talladega this afternoon.

saw Spiderman 2 as well. good movie-surprised how good Jamie Foxx was.

[narciso]

Really not too many villains, or too much retconning Parker's origins,