Another Classic From Krugman

Prof. Krugman continues to pull together his material for open mic night at The Gotham Comedy Club, running this howler on Social Security past his reading audience:

Where Government Excels

As Republican presidential hopefuls trot out their policy agendas — which always involve cutting taxes on the rich while slashing benefits for the poor and middle class — some real new thinking is happening on the other side of the aisle. Suddenly, it seems, many Democrats have decided to break with Beltway orthodoxy, which always calls for cuts in “entitlements.” Instead, they’re proposing that Social Security benefits actually be expanded.

This is a welcome development in two ways. First, the specific case for expanding Social Security is quite good. Second, and more fundamentally, Democrats finally seem to be standing up to antigovernment propaganda and recognizing the reality that there are some things the government does better than the private sector.

He goes for an early laugh with this:

Like all advanced nations, America mainly relies on private markets and private initiatives to provide its citizens with the things they want and need, and hardly anyone in our political discourse would propose changing that. The days when it sounded like a good idea to have the government directly run large parts of the economy are long past.

Huh? The ongoing cries for single-payer health coverage (which Krugman supports) don't represent a Big Government footprint on a huge part of the economy? And on that topic, when did we solve the Veterans Administration problem? Krugman, in an earlier paean to Big Government, had described the VA as follows:

Some still think of the V.A. as a decrepit institution, which it was in the Reagan and Bush I years. But thanks to reforms begun under Bill Clinton, it’s now providing remarkably high-quality health care at remarkably low cost.

Oops.

But on to the red meat for progressives:

And there’s another major example of government superiority: providing retirement security.

He explains that people don't save enough and they pay too much for their financial advice (Paul Krugman, closet Boglehead!). The answer... oh, there is no need for a spoiler alert - it's time to expand Social Security!

And in the real world of retirement, Social Security is a shining example of a system that works. It’s simple and clean, with low operating costs and minimal bureaucracy. It provides older Americans who worked hard all their lives with a chance of living decently in retirement, without requiring that they show an inhuman ability to think decades ahead and be investment whizzes as well. The only problem is that the decline of private pensions, and their replacement with inadequate 401(k)-type plans, has left a gap that Social Security isn’t currently big enough to fill. So why not make it bigger?

I am confident that Democratic plans to expand Social Security have nothing to do with an increase in forced savings by the working class to fund their own retirement and everything to do with higher taxes on "the rich" (i.e., earners over the Social Security cap of $117,000) to pay enhanced benefits to the more numerous non-rich. There are votes to be bought and Democrats to buy them!

Also in the real world are the many state and local pension plans that are run by, well, governments, and are dramatically (one might even say critically) underfunded.

Since Times readers often enjoy two papers in one, lets cut to a Times guest piece from Aug 4, 2013:

A Plan to Avert the Pension Crisis

By RICHARD J. RIORDAN and TIM RUTTEN

LOS ANGELES — IT isn’t politically feasible for Washington to bail out Detroit, but President Obama and Congress must step in to avert the worst fiscal collapse in urban American history.

They must intervene, because symptoms of the municipal illness that made Detroit, with an estimated $18 billion in liabilities, the largest city in American history to declare bankruptcy are showing up in other cities. 

And its not just Detroit by any means:

California’s giant state pension fund, the world’s sixth largest, continues to assume it will earn 7.75 percent on its investments, even though its actual returns have been less than half that for a decade. Los Angeles continues to project similar annual yields on its investments, when the actual average returns are closer to 5 percent. As a consequence, the city’s unfunded pension obligations probably will grow to around $15 billion over the next four years.

According to Moody’s, the credit-rating agency, Illinois’s net public-employee pension liabilities now amount to $133 billion, or 241 percent of the state’s total annual revenues; in Connecticut, 190 percent; in New Jersey, 137 percent; and in New York, 17 percent.

This is news to roughly no one other than Paul Krugman. And don't even ask about the generous (but unsustainable) public pension plans in Europe.

Government excels at making popular promises for benefits tomorrow that won't be funded until the day after tomorrow, at the earliest.

I COULD NEVER PICK A FAVORITE BECAUSE I LOVE THEM ALL, BUT... Krugman's tribute to France as an engine of job creation has got to be high on any list of Krugman Classics.

Comments

[Centralcal on iPad]

Yay 404 is gone.

[Captain Hate]

Get the hook for Kruggy Bear.

[Jeff Dobbs]

"Traditional Friday Morning Krugman Laff Track Thread"

[Captain Hate]

an inhuman ability to think decades ahead and be investment whizzes as well.

Kruggers is still butt hurt over that Enron stock.

[Ben]

So ez to critique but what alternatives will you proffer?

Lots of whining about SS just as with ACA. When will the republican party renew their optimism?

The FREEEEE market lacks a plan yet will be touted as the tired and NEW solution, re-treaded without regard for consumer safety.

[NKvirusedandback]

Maguire-- you beauty. Municipal/State pension driven bankruptcy has been my issue since 2009. Welcome to the club. THIS will be the issue that screams headlines the next decade. The Illinois default will be huge, the California default will be earth shattering. A beautiful thing. We need POTUS Walker to say NO Bailouts, let those states default and restructure, let the Bond Vultures reform Illinois, Calif, NJ, Ct, Md and the rest of the Blue Hells.

PS: I hope the family Maguire had a wonderful Easter.

[Ben]

Let's test for cosistency.

Take that innocent fetus you helped escape a life of poverty to parents who can't support themseves much less another mouth.

They both work. Dad dies in a freak accident. SS has been replaced by private ins too expensive and mother and child have no survivor benefits. What now? Shall the unaborted child go suck on a rock because he can't raise himself by his boot strap exceptionalism.

[Sandy "I stand with Walker - 2016" Daze]

My plan ?
Patterned after Chile's highly successful flat tax and mandatory private retirement accounts, with 10% pre tax added to the fund, and up to another 10% voluntarily added. Ties the individual directly to the account. Gets the government out of your pocket.

[Captain Hate]

If the Persian Rug and Stedman wanted to really do something positive for "their people" rather than being pandering dipshits, they'd address the shamefully low savings rate across all income levels by blacks. Virtually every major company offers a savings plan to employees, most with matching funds which is free money, and not taking advantage of this is as dumb as buying lottery tickets. Leaving this "disparate impact" unaddressed is as irresponsible and counterproductive as everything else those clowns have done.

[Sandy "I stand with Walker - 2016" Daze]

My plan ?
Patterned after Chile's highly successful flat tax and mandatory private retirement accounts, with 10% pre tax added to the fund, and up to another 10% voluntarily added. Ties the individual directly to the account. Gets the government out of your pocket.

[peter]

Hello to all as I pack up and get ready to fly home from the Turks Caicos. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed. Interet here has been spotty but have managed to lurk a bit.

[Eric in Boise]

The Krugster's in that group of folks SomeGuy described yesterday - the only self-reflection they engage in comes from staring at their newly waxed Priuses (Priusi?)

In Kruggy's case, it's probably a limo, though.

[NKvirusedandback]

Kruggy"s is probably a Lexus... a leased one....paid for by CUNY.

[Eric in Boise]

Uh, oh, Thai Pad is hinky again.

[Jane]

Have a good fight Peter.

[Old Lurker]

Sandy: "with 10% pre tax added to the fund, and up to another 10% voluntarily added. Ties the individual directly to the account."

Racist! The 10% that is pretax grossly benefits the top 1% since they can more easily afford to save 10%, that 10% for them is a lot more $$$ than the 99%, and the tax benefit is infinitely higher for the top 1% since they pay taxes and the bottom half do not. And permitting the top 1% to add an additional 10% to their golden nest eggs is just so so unfair to the long suffering middle class and working poor. Racist!

How did I do?

[NKvirusedandback]

OL@9:59-

"You're hired"
-- George Soros/Tom Steyer

[Captain Hate]

What the hell is going on with this trash software?

[Danube on iPad]

Blumenthal...Blumenthal...say, wasn't he the fellow with that wife-beating thingy? And wasn't there a DUI in there?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/04/enter-sid-blumenthal.php

[Rick Ballard]

If OASDI is in such great shape, why did the trustees note the DI portion will be broke in late 2016. It's almost as if Krugman is pretending to not understand that the Fascist "expanion of benefits" is a ploy to mask a growing shortfall which, having consumed DI reserves, is beginning chew into OAS reserves due to declining demographic factors which are going to move the OAS reserve exhaustion point forward.

He's really not a very good liar. Perhaps a little better than the President but that's a pathetically low bar.

[Buckeye]

Krugman style entitlements have been the rage in Greece for decades.

Great until the Germans decide that they are tired of paying for you to eff off.

We will face the same fate when China/Japan/EU decides they are tired of paying for us to eff off.

I suspect Krugman will argue that the added spending can be put on the backs of the 1 percent. Well France tried this over the last year or so, the 1 percent said eff you and disappeared. Same will happen here.

[Cecil Turner]

Hey, I know what to do . . . let's let the Democrats run it, demagogue constantly to get elected whilst running up out-year debt, siphon off a bit to union PAC slush funds, funnel monies to operatives and cronies, and if they can figure out how to selectively enforce tax provisions on conservatives, all the better.

Oh, that's not new, is it?

[Jane]

Actually Peter, don't fight, have a good flight!

[NKvirusedandback]

RickB-- The Statists' tactics regarding the OPM famine are pretty obvious. Use Soviet-Style propaganda saying 'all is well with the welfare state comrades', then when bankruptcy hits, extort producers to pay 'just a wee bit more' in order to make the welfare state 'more robust.' Then they retire, and it's someone else's problem.

[James D.]

I wonder what the Krugster would say to a one-time 50% (or 70%, or 95%) wealth tax on non-profit foundation and university endowments?

According to FoundtationCenter.com, the top 100 foundation endowments are worth $290 billion. And the top 92 university endowments (those worth $1 billion or more) are collectively worth $381 billion.

The next tier down (endowments worth $100 million+) probably control an equal amount of wealth, so we're talking about $1.3 trillion or so.

If we taxed that wealth at 90%, imagine what we could pay for!

[glasater]

Here's my mantra:

If all the wealth of the world could be divided equitably amongst all its inhabitants - everyone would be poor.

~Charles Murray

[NKvirusedandback]

JamesD-- that Blue v. Blue fight has already begun in Blue Hells like Ct and Providence. Ct and Providence are demanding 'payments in lieu of taxes' from nonprofits to make up budget shortfalls as their tax bases collapse (hey Drunken Dan GE Cap is KAPUT, another chunk of the tax base gone from Blue Hell Ct) so buy popcorn

[Porchlight]

Charles Murray is a national treasure.

Hello from Boca Raton! I have ditched the husband and kids for a quiet weekend with my beloved parents. Now we can go out to dinner and have conversations like real grown-up human beings. And I got to sleep late this morning!

[Cecil Turner]

Then they retire, and it's someone else's problem.

Exactly. And the recently elevated says "not my fault . . . I inherited it."

[Thomas Collins]

NK, I think the progs have coordinated this one well. Bail out Big Blue States by having the feds take over their pension obligations as part of an overall expansion of Social Security. MSM will cooperate by burying the analyses conclusively showing that to do this without more hemorrhaging of the integrity of US finances, substantial middle class tax increases will be necessary. They won't get everything, but I think they are hoping, in the last two years of the Obama reign, to get as much as they can.

[NKvirusedandback]

ThomasC- obviously I hope and expect the Congress says NO to Ill/NJ/CT the first defaulting states... and tells them to restructure and do deals with the Bond vultures.... like your clients. Lawyers just love workouts :).

[Jane]

I think we should secede.

[NKvirusedandback]

CecilT-- very true. But this time the newly elevated statists have no OPM (all spoken for by retirees and OFA sacred cows) and a hostile Bond Market. The Jig is up. Buy popcorn.

[Ben]

Predictably the glass half-empty party has no alternative. Your teensy lever can't move the bowels much less the World.

[Jane]

BREAKING: John McCain Pressured Obama IRS’s Lois Lerner to Attack Tea Party Conservatives

http://politistick.com/breaking-john-mccain-pressured-obama-irss-lois-lerner-to-attack-tea-party-conservatives/

[Dave (in MA)]

Yay 404 is gone.

I thought we were stuck with him for another 2 years.

[matt]

CH, weed is considered a baseline necessity in many of those homes now. Soon Hr. Docktor von Zipper will be calling for free reefer for all.

Soon they'll all be down at the Korova Milk Bar drinking their vellocet and synthemesc.

[NKvirusedandback]

POTUS Merde Touch to meet Fidel next week?

Can't blame a guy from wanting to meet his childhood heroes. As for Fidel? The funeral will be within the month after meeting Merde Touch.

[Extraneus]

Clarice linked that at the end of the last thread and I was just about to make the comment that the article provides no evidence that McCain pressured Lois Lerner or the IRS to attack tea party conservatives.

[Ignatz]

Quite the economist.
Heaps praise on a system generating a negative ROI for most of the poor, young, dumb saps paying into it.
Solution? Promise unicorn benefits to the late comers to Uncle Sam Ponzi's cornucopia.

And of course they never discuss the screw job their wunnerful pension plan provides to someone who dies early and gets a $200 death benefit to leave to their family and a kick in the teeth for the 15% of their income they forked over for 20-40 years. But it's for the chillrun and our chillrun's chillrun.

Krugman probably doesn't mind being known as an Enron adviser. The dumbass probably thinks it was a great corporate success story.

[Thomas Collins]

Good luck, NK. I hope you get appointed Trustee For the NY/NJ Sovereign Obligations Resolution Trust. Remember to put me on the RFP list for Trust counsel! :-)

[FTL]

BREAKING: John McCain Pressured Obama IRS’s Lois Lerner to Attack Tea Party Conservatives

If true, then this is eerily similar to McCain's performance as the token republican in the Keating scandal during his first term.

[NKvirusedandback]

It's all your's TC....

BTW, how paid up are the Commonwealth's funds?

[Jeff Dobbs]

I agree with Ext. I don't see the tea party connection on the McCain/IRS link (and the link in there that goes to the Judicial Watch press release).

McCain of McCain-Feingold infamy pressuring the IRS to rein in campaign spending by itself is dog bites man.

[Ben]

I love the Cruz response on the question of what Congress has accomplished...

"We stopped a lot of bad stuff from happening"

Oh yeah and ...SECESSION ! with a dollop of BENGHAAAAZZZZZEEEEE !

[Thomas Collins]

I believe the Commonwealth is in better shape than most other blues. However, even a mainstream journalist such as Jon Keller is not totally impressed by the way the Commonwealth has been run.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/04/10/keller-large-deval-patricks-sorry-legacy/

[NKvirusedandback]

TC-- same for NYS, the public unions are so strong that those states actually pay in. However, as our friend in ChiTown reminds and you know better than anyone else, there is that 7+% ROI assumption built into the plans. 7+%??? , heh, HEH, HA, HAH, HARDIHAR HAR!!!

[Eric in Boise]

7+% ROI assumption built into the plans.

Don't know if this is still true, but at one point in the not-too-distant past some states had long-term estimates as high as 8%. That's a real slice of lemon meringue at 30,000 feet.

[NKvirusedandback]

Eric- NYC/NYS are at 7+% (the better to hit up taxpayers for shortfalls) and THE BIG KAHUNA Calpers is at 7+%. When Calpers implodes, the carnage will be breathtaking.

[Eric in Boise]

When Calpers implodes, the carnage will be breathtaking.

Long Redenbacher calls and a healthy dollop of cash, NK. :)

[NKvirusedandback]

Our ChiTown friend reminds that the 7-9% imputed ROI is meant to minimize union employee and taxpayer contributions. Oh yeah, our Calif/Ill/NYS/NJ taxes are sure are low. This pension debacle will cause massive shock and pain when the Ponzi collapses. Poor Dana will know what the sharp end of the Pension Cutting Kabob knife feels like.

[Miss Marple]

I agree with Extraneus. I see no evidence of McCain going after the Tea Party groups.

I am no fan of McCain, but it's a real stretch to say this offers even a smidgin of proof.

[Cecil Turner]

How many Democrats have to get unelected before we can have some entitlement reform? Can we do it with 60 votes in the Senate? Or will it take 67?

[Threadkiller]

Democratic Presidential Candidate Vermin Supreme in Manchester, NH
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4533763/democratic-presidential-candidate-vermin-supreme-manchester-nh

[NKvirusedandback]

60 Senate (net of RINOs)Plus POTUS Walker gets it done. But in the end, the Dems will kick in, b/c the OPM famine takes $$$$ away from OFA mouths to fill, so they will take some $$$ from retired White People -- like Dana.

[Eric in Boise]

I guess you can add my name to the list of folks who has no use for MyFriends, but read that article and said "meh".

[I R A Darth Aggie]

Has any politician of any stripe called deficit spending taxation without representation? since the majority of the people paying off those debts don't have the vote? assuming they've been born, of course.

[henry]

Is somebody coming out of the closet?.

[lyle]

Sigh.

Why can't you people just get with the rest of the "respected journalist class" and go with this new McCain-screwing-conservatives-story (again), damn the facts.

[Marlene]

TK@12:33...I can only imagine what the Benedictine monks thought when he walked on campus! (daughter's alma mater)

[Buckeye]

James D @ 11:03

$1.3 trillion would buy lots of votes, I doubt if a penny would be used to retire debt.

[Captain Hate]

McCain's performance as the token republican in the Keating scandal during his first term.

In fairness to the addled coot, they just drilled down deep enough until the landed a token RINO before they called off the hunt. The ultimate number was surely much larger and the overwhelming majority were commiecrats.

[James D.]

True, Buckeye.

But if we must have politicians stealing wealth from private citizens to buy votes (and human nature suggests we will never be rid of the practice), I wouldn't mind seeing the R's steal wealth from prog organizations and use it to try and buy our votes. I'm certainly willing to be bought!

At a minimum, it beats the current system of progs stealing the wealth of folks like us and using it to buy the votes of people who despise us.

[Eric in Boise]

Is somebody coming out of the closet?

Henry, my guess is that the unicorn was already on the plane.

[lyle]

HotAir, 2015:

Clinton had reason to be angry. “I am not a racist,” Clinton was forced to tell ABC’s Good Morning America when pressed over his personal antipathy toward Barack Obama. “I never made a racist comment, and I didn’t attack him personally.”

Weekly Standard, 2012:

This anecdote is revealed in a New Yorker article on the relationship between Bill Clinton and Obama:

Tim Russert told me that, according to his sources, Bill Clinton, in an effort to secure an endorsement for Hillary from Ted Kennedy, said to Kennedy, “A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags.”

I bolded the very non-racist-don't-you-even-think-about-calling-Bill-racist-because-he's-a-Dem quote.

[Captain Hate]

Layers and layers of fact checkers:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/416755/new-york-times-kicks-nra-convention-coverage-massive-lie-charles-c-w-cooke

[NKvirusedandback]

The carrying the bags knock wasn't 'racist'. It was a legitimate personal attack on Obummer being a lightweight do nothing. Billy C hapened to be correct about that.

[lyle]

Really, NK? Tell me the reaction to that little rhetorical squib if any random Republican had said it, then or now.

[Ignatz]

--How many Democrats have to get unelected before we can have some entitlement reform?--

--60 Senate (net of RINOs)Plus POTUS Walker gets it done.--

Doubt it has anything to do with Senate RINOS. Nothing meaningful will happen from either party until we have a Greece fire in the DC kitchen.

"Brother can you spare an SEIU hack a dime", Calpers execs jumping out of windows in reaction to rubber pension checks and no doctor agreeing to pay Medicare for the privilege of treating a bunch of cranky, old coots are the only things that will force reality on Oz on the Potomac.

[lyle]

Greece fire in the DC kitchen.

Gold, Ig. Gold.

[Captain Hate]

Regarding Slick's comment, it was another whopper by the head of the Clintoon Dysfunctional Crime Family because there's no evidence that the Persian Rug has every done a day of honest work.

[NKvirusedandback]

If McCain or Romney said it it would have had the same motivation. Will the Legacy Media give Bubba a pass and would they lie about Romney or any other Repub/Conservative's racism? Of course they would. but that's a separate question.

[NKvirusedandback]

Ig-- I agree with that, it will come to that before there is 'reform'. And when it does, the Dems will sellout old white people (like Dana) because they will need the younger taxpaying voters in their tribes. But the 'Greece Fire' in DC and Sacramento, Trenton, Hartford and Springfield will come, of that there is no doubt.

[lyle]

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/hillarys_path_to_911.html

[Captain Hate]

Between TK's skull shift knob and Iggy's wordsmithery, there've been some funny comments in the last 24 hours.

When she isn't dropping F bombs and using a falsetto voice (my personal favorite) she makes her point in a more reasonable way:

http://tammybruce.com/2015/04/tammy-on-fox-business-new-poll-shows-hillary-is-losing-strength.html

[Captain Hate]

Rodham's campaign theme: Can we just get this over with?

[Ignatz]

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the execution assassination of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

[Jeff Dobbs]

henry:
Is somebody coming out of the closet?.

It's related to the new bathroom arrangements at the WH.

[Janet]

Over at Flares into Darkness -
RIP vnjagvet
Sunday, April 05, 2015
James Rhoads 1940-2015

http://yargb.blogspot.com/2015/04/rip-vnjagvet.html

[Captain Hate]

Thanks for linking that, Janet. Interesting that Jim was on Roger Simon's blog; I'll bet I read his comments as vnjagvet sometime between 2002 and 2008.

For those of you yesterday complaining about the lack of early Masters coverage, that is a decision by Augusta National.

[NKvirusedandback]

The Masters: will Spieth run away with it? Someone in the afternoon groups will have to go really low, like 65 low, to make it competitive.

[Neo]

HEWITT: Well now, let's turn to the Iran deal. Today, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, said that the deal is no deal unless sanctions come off on day one, the same day Iran's defense minister, Brigadier General Hossein Dehqhan said, "visits to our military centers is among our red lines." Now I just think the hashtag #dontgoback is, I wouldn't go back to the negotiating table. They just killed the deal, Sen. McCain.

McCAIN: You know, they, in a way, you've got to give them a little sympathy in this respect, in that John Kerry must have known what was in it, and yet chose to interpret it in another way. It's probably in black and white that the ayatollah is probably right. John Kerry is delusional. And he came back, and in my view, I think you're going to find out that they had never agreed to the things that John Kerry claimed that they had. So in a way, I can't blame the ayatollah, because I don't think they ever agreed to it, and I think John Kerry tried to come back and sell a bill of goods, hoping maybe that the Iranians wouldn't say much about it.

[narciso]

afternoon all, so the cavalcade of absurdity, just overflows, like a spare bathroom, Zaphod meeting with his trapper keeper pal, well the wandering coma isn't available, the most obvious reveal since the crying game, Steve Moore, praising the charisma and or personality of Razorback, the Gipper and Zaphod, for reasons passing understanding.

[narciso]

Of course, the Ayatollah is right, and the head of the Basij, and the commander of the Pasdaran, re the purpose of this agreement,

[Neo]

Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise
have.)

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward–reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story–and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

[narciso]

what are the odds with this cast of characters, I mentioned Frances Robles the stenographer, this isn't a neatly conjured narrative:

[exdemocrat]

Me too, Captain

[exdemocrat]

No lead is ever safe at Augusta.

[narciso]

some awareness from Pinnette:

http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2015/04/10/why-is-rand-paul-getting-better-press-than-ted-cruz/

[exdemocrat]

Any idea why the Augusta honchos decided that, Captain?

[narciso]

meanwhile, we deported the other day, someone who was foolish enough to chose the 'losing side' as Chambers dubbed it,

http://babalublog.com/2015/04/09/casstro-thug-who-violently-attacked-pro-democracy-american-at-summit-of-the-americas-identifie/

[narciso]

just another example of 'work place violence'

http://therightscoop.com/muslim-mohammed-abdullah-hassan-arrested-for-planing-suicide-bombing-at-us-army-base/

[narciso]

first Savannah Guthrie, now Al Ghuardian, is your scheduler punking you:

http://therightscoop.com/now-rand-paul-is-being-accused-of-walking-out-of-an-interview-but-thats-not-what-happened/

[Captain Hate]

Augusta National likes to do things its own way. You can't bring a camera or cellphone on to the course as a spectator and you'd better mind your manners while there. They can, and have, gone too far like when they banned Jack Whitaker as mentioned in this link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2013/04/11/the-masters-gary-mccord-cbs-augusta-national/2074379/

[Danube on iPad]

Jim posted as Vnjagvet at JOM for quite some time. What a fine guy.

[NKvirusedandback]

JimR = officer and gentleman. A fine and humble man.

Thanks again to Kim and Steph who arranged a JOM remembrance.

[Jane]

Hey! Is it Stephanie's B-day? Happy B-day!

[narciso]

happy birthday, Stephanie.

[James D.]

HB, Stephanie!

[Jeff Dobbs]

You can say it, Jane. I won't even be mad. I really did fall down on the job on Stephanie's b-day today. Haven't checked the list in some time. So....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE!!!

But here, now that I've looked, let me make up for it...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. MARYROSE!!!

Oh, and here are a couple from Wednesday...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY PORCHLIGHT!!!

(did Porch stick around for that, or was she already in Florida???)

And I'm going to say this now in case I ain't around, but Sunday is Harper Rhoads' (Jim's granddaughter) birthday.