I liked Not Adahn’s post on changes to the political system enough that I thought I’d write one of my own. While I could wax philosophical about democracy and republicanism and the like, that’s all been hashed through 1000x by people much smarter than me.
Instead, I wanted to approach some moderate changes that could be made to the current system to make them much more responsive to citizens’ revealed preferences and personal priorities rather than their stated preferences and social priorities. I’m under no illusion that any of this could ever happen, but it’s a fun discussion to have.
I mentioned in Not Adahn’s post that barriers to entry aren’t going to affect the incentive to acquire power because power, once acquired is lucrative enough to render those barriers to entry useless.
I wrote:
The only way to curb abuses is to kill the incentive to accumulate power via fedgov. That’s an incentive that cant easily be counterbalanced with barriers to entry or other disincentives. It’s also very hard to reduce or kill that incentive. As long as fedgov is the sovereign, no amount of legislation will prevent power seekers from eventually maximizing the reach of their institution.
What’s the best way to curb the social greed of those who seek power and the complacency of the electorate that gives the power to the seekers? How about an even stronger and more acute incentive? Personal greed.
My half-cocked idea is as follows. Tax day is now election day. The total government budget is set by popular vote, but with a twist. You have 5 choices: Budget stays the same as last year (zero based, no adjustments). Budget plus 5%, Budget minus 5%, Budget plus 10%, Budget minus 10%. Once you are done voting, you get a receipt for your votes (like usual), as well as a bill for your taxes owed at the percentage you voted for. Taxes are due immediately, and there are representatives of the IRS and the various localities in the building to take payment.
If you do not pay, your vote is marked provisional and you have 30 days to pay your bill (plus interest) and have the vote counted. After 30 days, your vote no longer counts, and while you still owe the money (and interest), it is no longer considered part of the annual budget and is saved in a rainy day fund that requires massive agreement to access (2/3 states and 2/3 of each legislative body).
This delineation is important because the federal budget is given to Congress based on actual tax receipts within the 30 day window. Balanced budget is constitutionally required, but Congress has the authority to allocate the specific expenditures within the money received on voting day. However, once you run out of money, you’re done.
Obviously, it would require a massive simplification of the tax code. It would probably also require some sort of assurance that everybody has to contribute at least something.
The benefit of this plan is that it aligns incentives for the populace limiting taxation and government expenditures. Of course, it would never happen because 1) it takes away the meticulously crafted system where costs of government are hidden and benefits are touted; and 2) anything that associates taxation with voting will be lambasted as “POLL TAXXXXX!!!!”
Comments
246 responses to “Aligning the incentives in the Union”
[Ready – may need some images] – wait is this actually part of the title? Now to read
You did not read article. You will receive no points for being first.
ehm when have I ever wanted points for being first?
Just right now. You wouldn’t attempt to comment first if it wasn’t there for you to take it. Therefore your commenting first is indicative of your desire to be first. //HuffPO Logic
Hoisted on his own petard!
The first commenter gets a bullet to the back of the head.
/alternate HuffPo logic
During the dark watches of the night when you question the value of your existence on this earth?
“If only I could get points for first, then I could be somebody.”
Shenanigans !!!
So yeah this seems totally unrealistic but then again everything that would seriously limit the state at this point is. But the whole tax all at one on election day is strange would need to do away with all payroll tax and have election every year
Also what do you mean revealed preferences / personal priorities ?
Revealed preferences is what people actually do as opposed to what they say they will do.
For example, the revealed preference for President Trump was higher in some states than the stated preference on polls (assuming the polling was accurate).
Revealed preference theory, pioneered by economist Paul Samuelson,[1][2] is a method of analyzing choices made by individuals, mostly used for comparing the influence of policies on consumer behavior. Revealed preference models assume that the preferences of consumers can be revealed by their purchasing habits.
that is what google said and it is slightly different
Or another way, actions speak louder than words.
I think he means that when you ask most people, they are all for more spending, but then they do everything they can to lower their tax bill.
Well sure, they want to spend other people’s money. This is why everyone should pay at least a flat tax percentage of their income, no matter how little, because everyone needs to have skin in the game.
I’m not so sure about that. I would almost prefer an option to purchase votes or only allow net tax payers to vote then making everyone pay taxes.
Only net taxpayers voting is a great option, but even less likely to happen than an across-the-board, no exceptions, flat tax.
Are those non-net taxpayers going to be exempt from all the non-tax related laws the government makes? This my beef whenever the ‘people who don’t pay property taxes shouldn’t get to vote’ comes up, ignoring that renters do pay property taxes just through the landlord, voting doesn’t simply set property tax rates.
” ‘people who don’t pay property taxes shouldn’t get to vote’ comes up”
Uh I very rarely hear that. Like, at all.
What I do hear is that “people who don’t pay taxes, on net, shouldn’t be able to vote”
Perhaps I wasn’t clear, I’m not saying that is the argument being made here, just that the two arguments have the same flaw in that Taxes aren’t the end all extent of the government’s role in our lives.
Are those non-net taxpayers going to be exempt from all the non-tax related laws the government makes?
Well, if the government was actually confined to its constitutional boundaries, that wouldn’t really be an issue.
Maybe it should be that people on the dole get no vote?
Won’t someone (else) think of the children??!!!
well that means their personal priorities is for others to be taxed. But I do not think there is a clear cut distinction between personal and social priorities
In reading about the Dems drive to punish the “super rich”, I came up with an idea to punish the “super powerful”. Or at least remove some of the profit motive of being a politician.
Anyone who holds federal office (President, VP, Congress, Supreme Court) is taxed at 100% for any income above their base government salary. This is in effect for the office holder’s term, and for 5 years after they are no longer in office. After 5 years out of office, when they are hopefully irrelevant and don’t have the same connections, the tax is lifted.
Nobody who works for the Federal Government should be allowed to vote – they have an inherit conflict of interest.
Or hold elected offices, for the same reason.
Can we add appointed positions as well?
Yes, sorry. Didn’t mean to leave that off.
This is already true. Fed gov employees are not allowed to hold any elected office, at any level. I’m too lazy to look it up, but there may be some exceptions…
No one that gets a gov check should vote.
Does that include Earned Income Credit?
The military?
I think you solve this problem very quickly by removing the vote from those on public assistance. The political class that stays in power by robbing productive Peters to pay these Pauls for their vote and increase in power,will quickly be neutered.
I would say yes, even the military
I agree, conflict of interest
^^^ I like this idea too.
Same here, on the theory that any market value after they leave office in excess of their government salary is due to them trading on their former office, which is rightly the property of their former employer. Of course, this would apply everyone – elected, appointed, and civil service.
Really? So you are the former CEO of GloboCorp, but you can’t profit from having that position because it belongs to the former employer? I mean I get what you’re saying, but the way you said it doesn’t really stand.
Work with me here. I’m trying to screw the pubsecs. Don’t I get a little leniency for that?
Elected officials, at least, are supposed to be “serving” the public. If you’re getting a sweet lobbying gig right after, you are serving yourself instead of the public.
You know, honestly, the only thing that bothers me about the revolving door is when there’s a direct conflict of interest. I have no problem with someone who’s been working in the public sector going to the private sector on the basis that, in addition to his/her personal expertise, he/she also brings to the table resources in the form of connections and institutional knowledge that he/she developed during the course of their career. I do have a huge problem with politicians exchanging policy favors for positions in the private sector once they leave. With regular civil service I think this is less of an issue as they’re typically not in a place to enact policy, but the principle still applies, I think.
So, I’d argue that absent a conflict of interest, income should be taxed normally, and in the case of a conflict, whatever applicable corruption charges are brought against all parties involved.
What about using a charity to collect money from people in return for future favors? I hear that is totes cool.
Sounds good to me. Put me down for budget -10%.
Put me down for not voting, then I don’t have to pay taxes FTW!
If not voting is a get-out-of-taxes-free card, I think this will be unsustainable. Have to think about that one.
I think it actually would be sustainable, assuming the government had broad powers and not extremely narrow ones. A certain amount of people will voluntarily pay for things necessary things like defense, courts, etc, and though there would be a free rider problem it would be countered by the taxpaying voters being the ones who get to determine all the accoutrements of the state. “Pay your taxes to keep the motto ‘One Nation Under God’”, “Pay your taxes to make the government use only renewable energy”, and other such things would get a good deal of the free riders off the fence.
Kamala Harris obviously has no idea how Medicare works. It is nice to see she’s decided to go clueless whack job this early in the process though.
Easiest way to find out the person you are speaking to has no idea how Medicare works: Explain the “donut hole.”
A delicious spherical fired dough confection?
It’s a condition men sometimes suffer after a bad fall—you know what? You’ll find out when you’re older, maybe.
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXWVHIhpoT0
Hah! That show has its moments.
That’s easy, it’s so that the donuts (or frycakes) would cook evenly in the oil without getting soggy.
Her rantings only prove that she wants to buy votes from idiots with promises of free stuff.
Used to be scumbag politicians had to turn up at campaign functions with barrels of beer.
Better days.
Used to be all politicians had to show up on voting day with barrels of rum, whiskey, cider, or punch.
End the Australian ballot!
If you expand Medicare then what happens to Medicaid? Medicaid is far more affordable for the federal government (well, it use to be before the expansion), because the states shared the costs. Medicare is unbelievably expensive. It’s, by far, the most expensive healthcare program in the US and one of the most expensive in the West.
It goes away. No need for it. Which should create big tax cuts at the state level, since Medicaid is either the single biggest, or second biggest, expense item for every state. Of course, the states have been diverting federal matching funds for all kinds of other stuff, but even after they start funding those themselves, they should be able to cut taxes.
Most won’t of course.
No “drown it in the bathtub” option? FUCK OFF, SLAVER!
I maintain the easiest and least complicated way to start repairing our thoroughly broken system requires very few changes. I agree that tax day should be (the day before) election day. But the only other change I advocate is ending federal withholding.
Everyone has to write a big fat check to the government and then go vote.
for some the check will be much fatter
That ends five seconds after mandatory withholding ends, as private withholding/escrow/savings schemes fill in that gap.
I’d be happier with making April 15 the due date for the entire year’s taxes period. Under the current laws, your taxes are due more or less when you receive income (mandatory withholding or quarterly estimated payments). April 15 is merely a grace period, provided you’ve made sufficient payments during the year. Failing to do so potentially incurs a penalty for underwithholding.
Easily managed. You can, of course, have an automatic savings arrangement, but those funds have to be available to pay any expense, and nobody can pay taxes on your behalf. So you still have a pool of money that you can use for anything else, that you have to draw down and write a check on to pay your taxes.
This is the point of the taxes being due at voting time. Your accountant can’t vote for you, and even if it’s just a pre-written check you hand to the IRS agent, you have to choose the amount (based on the vote) and hand it over.
This will make no difference. France only introduced pay as you earn (i.e. withholding) in 2018. they still voted for high taxes.
Because the people that want free shit far outnumber the productive that end up paying for the taxes.
I have been thinking about an article myself lately…on christianity and the premises for the religion. One of the things I want to touch on is the past abuses of the church. The religion as a whole no longer does that sort of thing because the church has no real power. When an institution has great power it attracts the worst kinds of people. Move that power somewhere else and those same people will seek positions on whatever other institution that power has migrated to. Pointing an accusing finger at the church because of past abuses is silly. Those same abuses are occurring today by the same people but through other institutions. Wherever the power is that is where those people go. The only solution, the one hit upon by our founders, is to disperse power so that no one has enough to do too much damage. It doesnt matter what systemic changes we make in government as long at it holds the power it does. Take its power away. It is the only way to fix what we are seeing today.
Now the Catholic Church seems to be a magnet for homosexuals and pederasts. Given their doctrine on policies on those practices, it means their leadership is by stocked with hypocrites and liars.
Now the Catholic Church seems to be a magnet for homosexuals and pederasts.
Is it, though? I think I’ve heard somewhere that the total number of boys molested by priests in the U.S., ever, is equal to the number molested by teachers in any given year.
Professions attract certain personality types.
+1 Icecream Truck
I’ve seen several people argue that since 80% of the victims of priests are male and post-pubescent, the real problem is repressed homosexuality in the ranks,
https://www.dailywire.com/news/33364/walsh-matt-walsh
“When an institution has great power it attracts the worst kinds of people.”
I would say that when an institution is aligned with the only actor that holds a “monopoly on force” (in modern times, “the state”) it always becomes corrupted. In the early US, when Freemasonry was at its height, the brotherhood committed violence against its critics and faced no real punishment because its membership was closely allied with the state. The same goes for Continental Freemasonry in Mexico and France where their members committed atrocities and faced no consequences because they were intermingled with the state.
We see this play out time and again with the Klan in the early 20th Century.
An interesting example of institutions being intermingled with the state and avoiding consequences is that during the Cristero War in Mexico where Continental Freemasonry was closely allied with the State and the Catholic Church functioned as the opposition to the state, the Ku Klux Klan (then influential within the US) and other progressive groups raised money in support of the Mexican government’s persecution against Catholics. Whereas, the Knights of Columbus provided funds to the Catholic Church in Mexico to help fund the resistance to the government.
So if we can just trick politicians into believing that the place with real power is the bottom of a tiger-trap, they will willingly throw themselves in?
Tax day is now election day.
I’m in.
Once you are done voting, you get a receipt for your votes (like usual), as well as a bill for your taxes owed at the percentage you voted for.
The mechanics of this, and the tax reform necessary to make it work, will be where the devil is. I can easily see a big percentage of people who have only a token tax liability, just so their vote counts, who would happily tax the fuck out of everybody else by voting for the big increase.
Mmmm…. I don’t think most people think about what they pay. They just think about their take-home pay and home to break even or get a refund at tax time. Rubbing it in their faces by making them write a check would be very enlightening.
Perhaps then as part of voting you can check up to three departments where your taxes will fund?
15% payroll tax is pretty big, even if you make minimum wage.
I think I mentioned before Romania made one positive move last year on taxes. Also there is a flat tax. But all tax is withheld. Moved on from having the bullshit distinction “employees” share and “employer’s” share which means taxes are more visible. Not that it helps.
So let us say your employer pays 10000 RON per month, 120k a year – 29k of your American dollars, which is about 3 times the average wage for Bucharest. What do you get?
Well first there is the pension, healthcare and unemployment taxes which are 35%. That leaves you 6500.
After that is the flat income tax at 10% which leaves you with 5850 for a total tax of 41.5%. Quite reasonable over all. There are some small exemptions so for the minimum wage the tax is something like 35-36% total. Also if you work in IT you are exempt from the 10% income tax.
“Also if you work in IT you are exempt from the 10% income tax.”
Sounds like a giveaway to IT
It was an attempt to get investment in local it. It worked some, there are a lot of well paying IT jobs which do pay the 35% and bring a lot to the budget. Also the programmers buy stuff for which there is a 19% VAT and there are also high gas taxes liquor taxes etc. So overall it probably brought plenty money to the government
“After that is the flat income tax at 10% which leaves you with 5850 for a total tax of 41.5%. Quite reasonable over all.”
That is not reasonable. I would use the word outrageous.
Jim Acosta is not the correspondent we want, but he is the correspondent we need.
I’m Brooke Baldwin. And in just about half an hour from now, the White House Press Secretary will be answering questions from the media, for the first time in more than five weeks. It comes as President Trump told The Wall Street Journal that there’s less than a 50-50 chance that new negotiations over border wall funding will succeed. If they fail, that could lead to either another Government shutdown in about 18 days’ time or to the President declaring a national emergency to get the money to build his border wall. Let’s go live to our chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, who will, of course, be in that briefing room, momentarily. So Jim, it’s still stunning to me to see this new report from the CBO that the Government shutdown has so far cost the U.S. economy $11 billion.
That’s right, Brooke. And that’s a dollar figure that’s double what the President was asking for for his border wall down on the border with Mexico. Now some of that will be recouped, according to the CBO, once these federal workers start receiving their back pay, but at the end of the day, there is going to be a big hit to this economy and I suspect that Sarah Sanders will be asked about that when she has this briefing in about 30 minutes from now. That’s the latest time estimate as to when this is going to get started. And as you were just saying a few moments ago, it has been a long time since we’ve had a White House briefing over here in the briefing room. It’s been 41 days. Since December 18th. That was the last time Sarah Sanders had a briefing. That is such a long period of time that we had a Government shutdown, the longest Government shutdown in U.S. history in the middle of that time frame.
And so there’s going to be a lot of questions asked. It will be interesting to see just how long Sarah Sanders devotes to this briefing. Some of the later briefings we saw at the end of 2018 were running on average in the ballpark of 20 or 25 minutes. And so, that may go pretty quickly when we see her come to the podium here in about half an hour from now. But obviously the Government shutdown is going to be top of mind in that briefing room. Just 18 days to go before the next deadline for a lapse in Government funding and we could be back where we started all over again. And the President, as you said, in that interview with The Wall Street Journal, that he’s only putting the odds of preventing this shutdown or another standoff with Democrats at less than 50-50. Those are not good odds. And it comes just at the very beginning of this negotiation, this negotiating process with Democrats. And so that obviously is going to come up.
Brooke, I think the other thing that’s obviously going to come up is the indictment of Roger Stone, which sort of caused a fire storm last Friday with Roger Stone giving the Nixonian salute as he left the courthouse down in Florida. The President was trying to downplay the relationship over the weekend, saying, well, he wasn’t really near me or near us during the election as it got close to election time. That is something that the President, that’s kind of an excuse the President has used, or an explanation the President has used with respect to other people who have been indicted in the Russia investigation. He sort of said the same kind of thing about Paul Manafort and others who have been targeted in the Mueller probe. And so it will be interesting to see just how Sarah Sanders frames all of this. What we’ve noticed in recent days that she’s just trying to stay away from those questions about the Russia investigation all together.
And one thing finally, Brooke, getting back to the shutdown, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, really emerged at the end of that process late Friday, as somebody who you know, even conservative allies of the president agreed had really just sort of taught the President a lesson. And so, one of the things I’ll be listening to keenly is whether or not the White House will even admit that they did not come out ahead on this whole standoff over Government funding and the wall down on the border. They’ve been trying to insist over the last few days and the President did this over the weekend in one of his tweets, that this was not a concession on the part of the President. That is obviously kind of an assessment that is just not dealing with reality. And you and I we were talking about some of this on Friday when were watching the Rose Garden speech from the President. It will be interesting to see whether or not Sarah Sanders and the White House team over here have truly come back to the real world when she steps out to the podium here in about 30 minutes from now.”
Keep fighting the good fight, Jim.
That’s a totally real number that I’m just going to take on faith.
I laugh, when the total economy is 20 T, 11 B ain’t much of a dent. The gov spends 4 plus T annually so in the the 35 days of shutdown the gov spent about 480B. The whole BS is to impress the math deniers.
But they’re not at all Democrat propagandists, just honest, objective, journalists, calling balls and strikes!
Shit, that’s TWO Trump walls.
Ah, hah hah.
–The Count
“Government shutdown has so far cost the U.S. economy $11 billion”
Bullshit.
I fail to see how either (i) some paychecks being delayed for a few weeks or (ii) some bureaucratic approvals being (further) delayed a few weeks, has any long-term economic impact at all.
KULAK! WRECKER!..
something, something, something…
That right there is 70% opinin’
Cut to the chase
In the end, Saez and Zucman’s argument comes down to the conviction that inequality — which the two economists have spent their careers studying and quantifying — is an inherently bad thing. If this is true, destroying the wealth of the upper class would be an end in and of itself, even if it doesn’t better the lot of the poor or middle class.
The idea that eliminating concentrated wealth is its own reward fits the political zeitgeist of the U.S.’s emerging anti-capitalist left. Dan Riffle, a policy adviser for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, declares that “every billionaire is a policy failure.” Journalist Tom Scocca asserts that “we should presumptively get rid of billionaires,” because “no one deserves a billion dollars.”
The nail that sticks up must be hammered down.
Don’t worry- the consequences of this are not unintended.
SF’d the link.
He’s just fighting link inequality.
“…destroying the wealth of the upper class would be an end in and of itself…”
And there you have it. Envious midgets pulling down giants.
If you are lucky these cunts grandstanding about fighting for social justice occasionally drop the mask, and then it is always obvious they are driven by envy or the power that comes from running a system that robs the productive to pay for the votes of the jealous/envious.
Tall poppies…
My wife, the smartass, put on Rachel Maddow last night and snuck upstairs to bed, so I overheard an interview with Warren. Man, she is just pushin’ that class warfare angle but hard, boy. Also, I like how the “ultra-wealthy” are inherently bad people who have no right to their money, but she, in her role as a Congresscritter, does in fact have a right to seize money she wants and give it out to whoever she deems fit, and by her definition the former is “unjust” and the latter is “fair”. It’s all just envy and spite as policy. A “wealth” tax is their wall, and “the rich” are their illegals; they’ll go nuts over anything they deem racist, but classism is just fine and dandy.
I’m mulling one possible reform. Each year, each Congressperson is assigned a fixed number of votes. Over the course of the year, they can “spend” those votes however they please. If they want to have outsized influence on an issue, they can cast and spend multiple votes on that one vote. Or they can refrain from voting and save their vote for another day. Additional votes could be provided, but only on the agreement of 2/3 of Congress (which, obviously, those who saved their votes would oppose).
The idea is to correct one of the flaws I see in voting, that the vote of someone who has significant stakes in a decision counts the same as that of someone with virtually no stake.
I think he means that when you ask most people, they are all for more spending, but then they do everything they can to lower their tax bill.
If, by “spending” you mean “wonderful flying ponies and rainbows”.
*Because the best things in life are FREE.
SF’d the link.
Link, I hope.
Oops.
Sorry to go OT so quickly, but this hits a level of derp I can only describe as epic.
Did they know how to code? It does not look like it.
Get used to it. My voice is ignored on a daily basis at my work.
#metoo, and I don’t have a job. Just the missus and me at home.
This is what critical studies does to your brain.
Turns you into a racist moron? Yep.
Bingo. Useful idiots are idiots. They can only see one thing.
Christ, what an asshole.
“So, what you’re saying is that you hate coal miners.”
-or-
“A black kid punched me in the face when I said ‘hi’ to him in first grade, and he said it was because I was white. (This is actually true.) Ever since, the sight of black children and old timey actors in blackface has made me flinch. (This is not true.) Granted, the actors are all dead and the children are too short to punch me, but the context isn’t the issue.”
Phoenix restaurant says this is a photo of coal miners. But I see offensive blackface
It’s what coal miners look like after a shift. Coal mining was (and is) a difficult, dirty and dangerous job. But somehow you are the victim. Perhaps the problem is actually with you seeing everything through a racial lens like an actual racist.
Phoenix restaurant says this is a photo of coal miners. But I see offensive blackface
Your delusions do not alter the fact that it is a photo of coal miners. You are wrong. The restaurant is right. This conversation is now over.
I see about six more zeros in my paycheck, but the bank takes a different perspective.
Appalachian coal miners are about the least privileged white people in the country. But still white, so totes racist and privileged.
Where is this restaurant? Now I want to yell at them for having it on the wall.
I asked a Latinx and white woman for their opinion. They said it looked like coal miners at a pub after work. Then they stepped back, frowned and said it’s men in blackface.
i tried this with a turnip. i looked at the picture and saw a turnip. then i stepped back and saw a pointy white hood. OMG TURNIPS ARE THE KLAN!!!!!!!!!
Your concern that the turnip was a threat to you and your face and voice shall be ignored.
well that concerns me. my debilitating neuroses must not be ignored. LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEERHEEEEEEEEE
Maybe the guy just needs a pair of glasses.
So, he freely admits, in writing, that he is an irrational idiot.
Photographs can be quite nasty.
One bit my sister, you know.
NO Really, She was trying to carve her name into it and it bit her nastie
You know, for a lot of people the next step would be to try and stop being an irrational idiot, or failing that to at least be quiet about it…
Ha. I used that photo in an ad for an Irish pub!
it has been a long time since we’ve had a White House briefing over here in the briefing room. It’s been 41 days. Since December 18th. That was the last time Sarah Sanders had a briefing. That is such a long period of time that we had a Government shutdown, the longest Government shutdown in U.S. history in the middle of that time frame.
Speaking of nonessential…
https://www.tmz.com/2019/01/29/empire-star-jussie-smollett-attacked-hospitalized-homophobic-hate-crime/
This seems like a possible lie.
FTA:
“Empire” star Jussie Smollett was brutally attacked by 2 men who beat him up, put his head in a noose and screamed, “This is MAGA country.”
Sources directly connected to Jussie tell TMZ, the actor arrived in Chicago from New York late Monday, and at around 2 AM he was hungry and went to a Subway. We’re told when he walked out, someone yelled, “Aren’t you that f***ot ‘Empire’ n*****?”
The 2 men — both white and wearing ski masks — viciously attacked Jussie as he fought back, but they beat him badly and fractured a rib. They put a rope around his neck, poured bleach on him and as they left they yelled, “This is MAGA country.”
None of this sounds plausible. Going to a Subway restaurant at 2am downtown? What? And then some guys are sitting there in ski masks with bleach? According to reports he was staying downtown (no specific location offered). It would have to have been around the Loop (I don’t even think there is a Subway across the river in River North) which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since the Loop is pretty dead after 6pm. And it’s strange that a celebrity would be staying around the Loop rather than River North. I have a feeling that this is going to end with no evidence to prove his narrative, but everyone is just going to believe it like they did Kavanaugh or the Covington thing.
Just for reference, the only part of the City that you would likely find proud Trump supporters would probably be in the neighborhoods on the city’s edges (where Trump performed the best during the 2016 election). Nothing here makes any sense.
It makes perfect sense when you consider that the complainant is an actor.
I am gonna bet that when the facts come out this is all bullshit made up to push a narrative.
but everyone is just going to believe it like they did Kavanaugh or the Covington thing.
*Pops popcorn and patiently waits for the msm to discredit themselves again*
Either some sort of shady deal gone bad or he owed money to the kind of people who won’t take you to court over your debt. His injuries are going to be publicly noticed so he needs a scapegoat story pointing at a different group for responsibility. MAGA will do admirably even though the idea of some sort of weird MAGA/KKK hybrid stronghold existing in Chicago is absurd beyond belief.
From Goodfellas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hg7s38fO4
Kind of like those Upper West Side Nazis that swastika’d a Jewish professor at Columbia.
The YouTube channel Beauty & the Beta has a regular segment called “Hoax Hate”.
Gotta admit the MAGA note that looks like it was written by a two-year-old is a nice touch.
Yeah, it’s possible he pissed off some people who themselves used the TRUMPRACIST! narrative to deflect. I’d consider actual MAGA hats to be the least likely option.
Horseshit.
MAGA people being white supremacists makes as much sense as the attempt to paint the Catholic church as white supremacists. Both are groups devoted to ideas and not identity. The CC church is composed of people from every race, every country and every culture in the world. They dont give half of a shit about race any more than MAGA supporters do.
The left is pathetic.
To wit, the Catholic priest at my kid’s school is African, Ghana specifically. And he is more of a hardass than any American priest I’ve ever met.
The future of the Church is in Africa. And those Africans make the Irish Catholics that I grew-up with look like Jesuit pussies
African priest: It’s Friday, you can’t eat meat
Irish priest: Not to worry. It’s not Lent and the diocese says you can perform penance instead of abstaining from meat. The Spirit of Vatican II and all that
African priest: Bitch, you better talk to your cardinal. This ain’t no Anglican Church
Of course this is just a joke, I meant no offense to the Anglican Church or the Bishop of Canterbury
Fuckin’ splitters. Screw ’em.
Some of my extended family is from Africa. They are very Christian.
That blanket statement that MAGA people can’t be racist, is as dumb as the blanket statement that they are all racist, Hell I personally know Trumpsters who are racists.
True. There are a lot of shitheads everywhere
It would be dumb if that was what he said which he didn’t.
Let him go, he’s on a roll.
Sorry, The blanket statement that MAGA supporters don’t give half of a shit about race is as dumb as the blanket statement that they are all white supremacists.
I think your point was understood and I think it’s fair. What is not acceptable though is your obsession and love for Kurt Vonnegut.
Well, I guess that joke was dead on arrival. So it goes….
I dont think there is a connection between MAGA people and racism. Making America Great Again is an idea that has no connection to race. Yes, there are MAGA people who are racists. There are race car drivers, gardeners and engineers who are racists but engineering, gardening and racing cars have nothing to do with racism.
And no one said MAGA people cant be racist.
Considering how low-rent and trivial supposed episodes of racism have gotten, let alone the race-baiting scams that now seem more rule than anomaly, and the blatant bigotry not just tolerated but encouraged, and sometimes even required, by the left, I don’t give a toss about racism.
“There are race car drivers, gardeners and engineers who are racists”
A gardener with “discriminate” taste
Assuming they are like the other Mexicans I have met (not a large sample, admittedly), I would bet that I am more likely to find a bigger percentage of racists on the crew that does landscaping at the Casa Dean than at a MAGA rally.
Yeah, people tend to not realize how bigoted Mexican immigrants (and the vast majority of immigrants for that matter) really are. It’s almost as if they have no experience interacting with immigrants at all beyond barking orders at them.
I think the argument is that there are racists who see MAGA as anti-immigrant, which equates to anti-brown people, and so they glom onto the movement in a way they can’t with, say, Progressivism. FWIW I think there’s something to it, but I think it’s just one of those things. Idiots are like barnacles; they’ll attach themselves to anything that stays in the water long enough.
Fair enough, although MAGA is a bit more ambiguous than racecar driver, It can be an ideal/ideology or merely short-hand for Trump supporter, If there is a singular concrete ethos or philosophy attached to it I am not aware of that. Seems to me people can come to MAGA from a number of directions and race could play into any number of those avenues.
“Racecar” spelled backwards still spells “Racecar”. Coincidence or white supremacy?
Chicago… MAGA country…uh-huh…
I have a hard time believing racist Nazis are going hang out in downtown Chicago in the middle of the night.
I think I’ve said this story before on here. One time in my twenties, I went to the South Side Irish Parade (for the first time ever). Long story short, a friend of a friend of a girl that we were friends (who was at the parade with me) took us to a skinhead party. When we realized what kind of party it was (there was a group of people watching a documentary on the Klan in the front room) we quickly left (I don’t look like a good Aryan).
So, I don’t doubt that there are probably a small fringe of neo-Nazis whatever in any given city, but specifically in Chicago, since the turn of the 21st Century, only yuppies occupy downtown and the area around there. Yuppies are basically the back of the Democratic Party. I’d believe a Trump supporter being assaulted downtown far more than I would a Trump supporter assaulting someone else downtown.
Dude, it’s like you didn’t even hear about the rampant smirking by MAGA hat wearers going on last week.
I forgot about “assault smirks”.
“assault smirks”
with the corner thingie that goes up!
I’m guessing the addition of the “black fag” (really?) note is intended to leave the impression that the MAGA fiends were stalking him.
There appear to be quite a few Subways in Chicago between I94 and the lake. A few are 24 hours, but the vast majority are closed by midnight.
Of course, he’s staying in what I would bet is a nice hotel. You know, the kind that has room service. The idea that he would go out at 2:00 am for a Subway is pretty ludicrous. As is the idea that he would go out in a freaking blizzard to get a cheap sandwich.
So, I dunno what, if anything happened, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t just happen to wander out of his hotel in search of a $6.00 sandwich last night.
Yes. But, again, that would place him in the Loop or South Shore. Either way, both areas are nice, but that’s not really where visitors stay and the hotels are not the really nice ones. I don’t know, maybe he’s just a Chicago history buff and wanted to stay at the Palmer House (which is possible). Usually, though, only business people stay in that area because of its proximity to the financial district in the Loop and proximity to City Hall. It’s a strange place for a celebrity to stay.
To me, the biggest issue is that, as I understand him, this happened last night. In Chicago. Now, I’m not sure exactly how far below zero the temp, or the wind chill, was, or whether it was actually snowing, but I know it was way too man-killing cold to indulge your desire for a Subway sandwich.
Or for a bunch of racists to be hanging out looking for a black guy to beat up.
It was indeed snowing last night, but it ended around 9pm. However, it was well below zero around 2am. He must have really wanted a Subway sandwich.
Plus he went to Northwestern for treatment according to the report. That’s in the opposite direction of the Loop and South Shore. If the assault occurred there (which would make sense, since those would be the only places where there is a 24 hour Subway) why wouldn’t he go to U of Chicago, which is closer, rather than going further north? Nothing adds up here
On the roulette wheel of “What Really Happened”, I’m putting my bet on “A hooker beat the shit out of him, and he’s too embarrassed to admit it”.
^I think we have a winner.
Get a load of Mr. 4 Chan here.
LEARNTOCODE
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Oh! we can do an acrostic
LEARNTOCODE
ELSE
A
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Another questionable thing about this: this guy isn’t exactly a household name. I’ve never heard of him in my life. I’m guessing Empire, a show with an overwhelmingly black audience, is pretty much the only notable acting gig this guy has ever had. OK, I looked him up now, and he’s had only a couple of minor movie roles, so yeah this is basically his entire career. Do you think a lot of racist shitlord Trump fans watch a lot of “Empire” episodes? Probably not. Why would they just happen to be crossing his path in the middle of the night and recognize this not particularly recognizable minor celebrity? So if you find a random encounter to be highly unlikely, which I do, that means they were following him and targeting him. Why would random MAGA thugs specifically target this not particularly well known actor? To what end?
None of it makes much sense.
That’s a really good point. If you hate black gay actors so much that you’re going to stalk a particular one through a Chicago winter to perform a pretty elaborate bit of torture, do you also watch Empire enough to recognize the guy?
Since it was, y’know, 2 AM and subzero temperatures, I would imagine he was pretty well bundled up – hat, scarf, etc. Making it even more unlikely he’d just be spotted leaving the building.
In order to completely buy into this story as it has been told, you have to believe that a pair of men are fixated on a rather obscure actor to the point of staking out his hotel in the middle of the night on the off chance he ducks out for some deeeelicious Subway. Call me crazy, but that sounds less than plausible.
It’s bad fiction.
It never happened.
Oh, I’m willing to believe something happened, that he was attacked by someone. Just not under the circumstances being claimed.
Agreed.
FUBAR
https://www.foxnews.com/world/ten-children-in-tanzania-kidnapped-and-killed-for-their-body-parts-authorities-say
all cultures are equal.
“This is all about superstitious beliefs and many believe they will get help from witchcraft,” Njombe District Commissioner Ruth Msafiri said.
“These murders are linked to witchcraft practices because that is the trend for such crimes, where herbalists ask people to get these human parts for money rituals,” he said.
“We want to identify the perpetrators, but our focus is to educate the traditional practitioners in the area quickly and those in surrounding communities on the need to stop these acts,” CNN quoted him as saying.
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has described the body parts market as one that fetches from $2,000 for a limb to $75,000 for a corpse.
But remember, believing you can call down lightning bolts on your enemies is just as epistemologically valid and correct as the scientific method.
Kamala Harris’ record as AG causing a split in the Dem base and it’s classic:
Rob Griesemer
@rgriesemer3
Replying to @WillisJermane
She announced she was running for President yesterday and I’m already exhausted at the conservative backlash
Jermane Lee Willis
@WillisJermane
The backlash is primarily from Democratic voters overwhelmingly rejecting Kamala Harris as a candidate for president.
ghetto intellectual™
@kzshabazz
Correct. You would have to really dumb to not think that lots of African Americans are gonna balk at backing a former AG with a crappy record.
Rob Griesemer
@rgriesemer3
Perhaps this is true too but lots of conservative influencers I follow have been tweeting about her recently and it feels suffocating, maybe I just need some time off twitter
ghetto intellectual™
@kzshabazz
African Americans are born suffocating in a nation that is at war with us. I’m pretty sure that white lefties can endure some virtual discomfort.
African Americans are born suffocating in a nation that is at war with us
Nope.
it’s delusional paranoia but at an aggregate level. is there a recognized pathology in the DSM-5 for it?
Maybe he means suffocated by the casual bigotry of lefty paternalism.
Word
Marinating in leftist idiocy does not make one an intellectual. Or maybe it does, in the Thomas Sowell sense.
“Social media influencer” is the “Internet bubble” of this generation. Selling product placement in pictures of your duck face is not a sustainable career.
Dammit. That was going to be my retirement plan.
I’m always too late on this stuff.
“Today, the big reveal of my new genital piercing, brought to you by . . . .”
That “blackface” photo article is even dumber than I expected.
Viewers cannot determine the intention of an artist’s work. Art also exposes society’s blind spots. Blackface is only a glimpse of a larger issue. The larger issue is the lack of representation of marginalized people and their voices in Phoenix.
Frequently, I enter art galleries and I am not represented in the art, which leads to uneducated curation for exhibitions.
———
At the downtown Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.
A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, “Whites Only.” It says people like me are not welcome.
Boo fucking hoo. Your pathetic psychoses are not welcome. Stay home, huddled under your bed, in your safe space.
“It says people like me are not welcome”
You mean people so far up their ass they can’t put things into proper context. I think that’s a feature not a bug.
Oh, I’m pretty sure they’ll serve you even if you aren’t a coal miner.
Me neither. Both of my eyes are not on one side of my face.
Frequently, I enter art galleries and I am not represented in the art, which leads to uneducated curation for exhibitions.
Then become an artist, you stupid fuckwit.
I enter art galleries and I am not represented in the art
Oddly, when I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I saw not one middle-aged American man in any of the pictures. Just a bunch of Dutch people, mostly fat merchants.
I enjoyed it anyway, and did not regard it as “uneducated curation”.
Oh, and let me point out that the lack of people who look like you in an art gallery does not “lead to” uneducated curation. You might call it the result of uneducated curation, but this sentence gives me a clue about who is actually uneducated, here.
OT: The FBI has finally released their report on the Las Vegas gunman. The official conclusion: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ other then suicide.
Cue, the conspiracy theorists.
If they were deliberately trying to goad the conspiracy theorists I dont think they could have done a better job.
So now they’ll release all the videos of him walking in and out of the hotel and who visited his room?
Just kidding.
Fact: The photograph shows coal miners’ faces covered in soot. The context of the photograph is not the issue.
Something something three dimensional reality doesn’t care about your feelings.
I hope someone shows him a picture of black coal miners and it gives the guy an aneurysm.
I’m reminded of the scene in 1941 in the tank…
That movie is a guilty pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiTf-DEpwBI
The world is not obliged to cater to your fucking neuroses and hangups.
What the restaurant owner would have said if he wasn’t trying to keep a customer.
FIFY
Actually, context is everything.
Indeed. Quoth the Iron Law:
Meaning comes from context.
I can see an argument being made that the appearance is unsettling enough to maybe recommend taking the thing down. It’s a dumb argument, but at least it’s an argument. Dad owns a painting of a penitente procession that he was gifted by an artist friend. He takes it down when there’s company, despite there being nothing objectionable about the practice or the painting, but if you click through… well. He errs on the side of caution. So there is a dumb but not fatally flawed argument this guy could make about the photo, but he doesn’t stop there. He goes on to insinuate, in utterly bad faith, that the restaurateur is a racist who wants to operate a whites-only establishment. What other takeaway is there? There are only two rational operators involved here: the author himself, and the owner with whom he spoke. There is no metaphysical force of racial tension: either it’s a deliberate act of racial animosity for the restaurateur to keep this photograph hanging in the bar, or it’s entirely on the author for being a thin-skinned grievance-obsessed pussy. He clearly goes with the former. That’s beyond the realm of dumb and argumentative, it’s malicious insinuation.
Even if you want to take this guy seriously, the actual history of blackface should be enough to make a mockery of his article. Blackface was a performing technique. It was used by actors, singers, entertainers. Random joes didn’t sit around a bar in blackface. There’s clearly no performance being put on in the picture.
Message I just got thru my website:
Sounds like opportunity knocking
Like STEVE SMITH in the woods.
Gang bang?
I’m think I’m going to use that in my next letter of intent to acquire a physician practice. Just to see if anyone actually reads the damn things.
How many times did that get run through Google Translate?
Before you send him your bank info. Send it to me so I can verify that everything checks out.
Thanks man, I really appreciate the help.
My routing number is 051000FUCK0FF
And here I was expecting some variation on 55378008.
I’d would like to unite along a person open to pursuing further tangled in familiar matters pertaining our line of work, associate me through my page if you think the similar.
Sounds legit. Send him your bank info.
http://www.wfmz.com/news/pennsylvania/wolf-calls-anew-to-expand-background-checks-to-gun-shows/994628476
FUCK OFF SLAVER.
I was expecting something about smashing the patriarchy.
They are trying that shit again in NM, too.
I almost always get the “3 day hold” on firearms checks. Most gun shows are 2 days long. How do I get my gun if the guy has folded up his table and gone home?
I think that’s the idea.
What the fuck is he talking about? When you buy a gun from a dealer with an FFL, gunshow or at their shop, they do a background check.
More lies from people who want you to be helpless.
He’s talking about private sales.
Oh, this ought to be good.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-tap-georgias-stacey-abrams-to-deliver-the-response-to-trumps-state-of-the-union-address/2019/01/29/2561ce84-23f9-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?utm_term=.42e020c45959
And by good, I mean face-meltingly absurd.
Trot out the loser for the rebuttal.
Sounds like a winning plan to me.
Funny how when Trump suggested the Dems might try to steal the election from him through voter fraud, he was excoriated for not accepting democracy, but when Abrams and the candidates in Florida lost and screamed fraud, they were praised.
https://twitter.com/theMRC/status/1090346549459251200
Looks like Weigel waddled his way into trouble again. He should thin his mustache more so he looks even creepier
He looks like a Dave Thomas character.
FYI – the CSS is currently crazy and not like the normal Glibs.
He reminds me of the nebbish weirdo Thomas played in Rat Race.
Someone should tell him that pornstache has been considered unacceptable for anyone not named Selleck for 30 years
This reminds me vaguely of Dawkins’ “The efish Gene” book.
Individual motives are selfish but overall result is an elegant ecosystem that manages itself way better than a human committee could ever do.
How did Selfish become efish?
What is an efish? Do I need to invent one?
Dang. I was hoping that was a typo for “Elfish” (better known as “Elven”, but hey, isn’t Dawkins a Brit or somebody who doesn’t speak American as their first language?)