Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Tax the Dead: A Posthumously Open Thread

Stephen Colbert has a great idea: don’t stop with taxing just the poor, get the dead to carry their fair share.

Whatcha think, Moose? Is there any reason not to dig up the dead and get them to pitch in so folks making $1M/year don’t have to?

Consider this a posthumously Open Thread.

h/t to BruinKid

So folks, let’s not just broaden the tax base.  I say, we need to deepen the tax base.  And let’s force these Cadaverican-Americans to pay, in the forms of rings, watches, and whatever else we can pry from their cold dead hands.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 70 Comments

70 comments

  2. Adept2u

    Wow!  I just saw this woman’s performance on Morning Joe, and she is more than impressive.  She’ll win the Senate in Mass and she seems to have the leadership characteristics I’m looking for in 2016.

  3. jsfox

    Powerful and more importantly good stuff that is easily understood.

    Scott Brown should be wery wery nerwous.

    It will be interesting to see if Brown doubles down or falls way out of step with Mitch McConnell.

  4. jsfox

    As some of you may have heard or if you are lucky haven’t heard. Ralph Nader and Cornel West have joined their egos in an attempt to find a candidate to mount a primary of President Obama.

    Well TNC expresses quite aptly my opinion of this move by Ralphy and Corny –

    Despite the claims of working on behalf of the poor, I’m forced to wonder if any of this would be happening had Obama returned a few phone-calls and put in some face-time. The presidential fetish on exhibition here, paired with a non-critique of Congress, the non-recognition of the need to build a more left-leaning electorate is amazing and anti-democratic. Nothing better evidences that than seeing Nader, a man who evidently believes Obama an “Uncle Tom for the corporations,” turn around and praise Sarah Palin for her “conservative populism.” This isn’t progressive. It’s personal. And it’s reactionary.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/pol…

  5. HappyinVT

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!  

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

    The Yankees are going to the play-offs!

  6. jsfox

    From Harper’s index October 2011 (this is the issue month)

    — Seventy-one percent of current U.S. debt was accumulated during Republican presidential terms.

    — Two-thirds of debt-ceiling elevations since 1960 have been signed into law by Republican presidents.

    — In 1961 the percentage of corporate profits paid in taxes was nearly forty-one; now it is less than eleven.

    — Seventy-five percent of the increase in corporate profit margins since 2001 has come from depressed wages.

    But hey don’t forget it’s all Obama’s fault  . . .

    And to just add insult to injury

    * The value of government subsidies that will go to oil and gas industries between now and 2015 is estimated at $78,155,000,000.

    http://www.frontporchrepublic….

  7. Shaun Appleby

    Let the crusades begin:


    “I also as a Christian have a clear directive to support Israel, so from my perspective it’s pretty easy,” Perry said when a reporter asked if Perry’s faith was driving his views, according to the Associated Press.

    Elizabeth Tenety – Rick Perry: ‘As a Christian . . . I stand with Israel’ Washington Post 20 Sep 11

    And the clear directive?:


    A June 2011 Pew Forum poll of American evangelicals showed that nearly half “say the state of Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy about the Second Coming of Jesus” Many point to Genesis 12:3, which reads, “And I will bless them that bless (Israel), and curse him that curseth (Israel),” as scriptural evidence of the need to support the Jewish state.

    Elizabeth Tenety – Rick Perry: ‘As a Christian . . . I stand with Israel’ Washington Post 20 Sep 11

    This isn’t policy, this is Christianist madness masquerading as policy (h/t Sully):


    In the age of Bin Laden, this kind of sectarian bluster would have been bad enough. In the age of the Arab Spring, it’s catastrophic. Country after country is grappling with Islam, democracy, and anti-Americanism. The last thing we need is a crusading president who turns the Muslim world against us.

    Perry seems eager for such a confrontation. “We have been slow to recognize the risks posed by the new regime in Egypt,” he warned yesterday in his prepared remarks. “We must signal to the world, including nations like Turkey and Egypt whom we have considered allies in recent years, that we won’t tolerate aggression against Israel.” Considered allies? Is that a declaration of separation? And in case Perry’s blasts at Turkey and Egypt weren’t enough, he threatened to cut off the United Nations: “America must make it clear that a declaration of Palestinian Statehood in violation of the spirit of the Oslo accords could jeopardize our funding of U.N. operations.”

    William Saletan – Alliance for Christ Slate 20 Sep 11

    Holy f*ck.

  8. anna shane

    a tightwad rich dad made his three sons agree to each bury a millions dollars with him. So the guy dies and the three sons are hanging around, and one says to another, did you do it, and the guys says, yes, in diamonds, how about you, and the son says, yes, in gold. So they turn to the third brother and asks him, and he says, of course, but I didn’t have the cash so i wrote him a check.  

  9. November 5

    Now that I’ve stopped laughing my ass off over the clip…

    If Colbert could continually blow himself while talking and refer to himself or his show in the third person every 10 seconds.

    I think I’ve ferreted out the difference between BO, Beck and Hannity. The first two really know this selling feudalism to the masses is a joke, but it pays, very, very well. Bill is at least professional about it. Beck treats it too much like performance art. Joesph Goebbels would have been impressed, but the Nazis lost WWII. When you’re too over the top for Roger Ailes, something’s wrong.

    Hannity, of course, is a true believer. At at $10M+/year, he’s not going to be one of the serfs, so more power to him.  

  10. HappyinVT

    As of 8:00pm EDT Troy Davis is waiting on the U.S. Supreme Court.  I would guess he holds not much more hope than I do that they’ll stay his execution again.

    And down in Texas, Lawrence Brewer, one of the men convicted of dragging James Byrd to his death, asked for and received no stay.  That makes Brewer the 11th person to die in Texas this year and the 34th in the U.S.  I’m sure Rick Perry is proud.

  12. Adept2u

    This time they had the state do it but they just executed another Black man as sure as you were murdered.  Wonder how such injustices happen?  Not me, I grew up in this country.

  15. Adept2u

    GENEVA (AP) — Scientists at the world’s largest physics lab say they have clocked subatomic particles traveling faster than light, a feat that – if true – would break a fundamental pillar of science.

    The readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.

    “This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully,” said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, who was not involved in the experiment.

    Nothing is supposed to move faster than light, at least according to Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity: The famous E (equals) mc2 equation. That stands for energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

    But neutrinos – one of the strangest well-known particles in physics – have now been observed smashing past this cosmic speed barrier of 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers).

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s…

    YEEEEE HAAAAAW!!!!!!

  16. jsfox

    Cuban: Paying Taxes ‘The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do’

    There’s another millionaire supporter of the so-called Buffett Tax. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban came out in favor of President Obama’s proposed deficit reduction plan on his blog, shooting down the argument that taxes are a disincentive for economic growth.

    “So be Patriotic. Go out there and get rich,” he writes. “Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes, your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be ‘what a great problem to have,’ and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you.”

    http://blogmaverick.com/2011/0…

Comments are closed.