Warren Buffett Is Hilarious

Sometimes I just love Warren Buffet, I really do:

[Mitt Romney] makes his money the same way I make my money. He makes money by moving around big bucks, not by straining his back and going to work cleaning the toilets or whatever it may be. He makes it shoving around money. I make it shoving around money. If you look at the 400 highest incomes in the United States, they average $220 million. Something like 90 of them are effectively unemployed.

LOL! It's funny because it's true.

Primarily Stupid

So, the Four Horsemen of the Crapocalypse had another debate last night, I'm not sure on what channel, and I didn't watch it because who fucking cares. I did watch some fun highlights this morning on the news, though! That and Google can make you an expert on anything—true fact! Here is my Executive Summary: Taxes, bootstraps, Jesus, Ronald Reagan, America, grandiosity, taxes, amen.

The "show-stopper" from last night's debate was Newt Gingrich's response when moderator John King asked him about the interview his ex-wife just gave to ABC News:

King: As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News, and another interview at the Washington Post, and this story has now gone viral on the internet. In it, she says you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair; she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. Would you like to take some time to respond to that?

Gingrich: No, but I will. [wild cheers and applause from the audience] I think, I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for office. And I am APPALLED that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that. [more wild cheers and applause; standing ovation]

He then goes on to say a bunch of garbage about how interviewing his ex-wife two days before a primary is "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine." Ha ha okay, player. Let us not lose sight of the fact that this is the same dude who reportedly delivered divorce papers to one ex-wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery and said ex-wife after she was diagnosed with MS. Newt Gingrich, I think you can PROBABLY imagine something closer to despicable, if you REALLY try.

Anyway! On the one hand, Gingrich has a point about asking a presidential candidate about private, consensual sexual behavior. On the other hand, this is the guy who led the impeachment charge against President Bill Clinton over a consensual blowjob. So if Newt Gingrich really doesn't like that his sexual peccadilloes are being brought up during a presidential primary debate, he quite literally doesn't have anyone to blame but himself.

Moving on...

Something something Ron Paul. Can you tell that I'm so over this guy? I'm so over this guy. I know that he and I share some pretty important views about foreign policy and the drug war, though we certainly stumbled to them from different directions, but I just don't give a fuck. He doesn't believe people with uteri should have bodily autonomy, he doesn't believe same-sex couples should be allowed equal rights, he doesn't believe the government should provide necessary institutional support to people with disabilities, he doesn't appear to believe that people of color are his equal, and he does appear to believe that poor people deserve their lot. He seemingly lacks the ability to empathize with anyone who is meaningfully different from himself, and that is not an acceptable characteristic for someone who wants to be the president of a diverse democracy.

Rick Santorum is still a sweater-vested bigot.

Mitt Romney offered an awesome retort to someone who asks him: "What will you do to support the 99% seeing as how you are part of the 1%?"

Romney, turning on the questioner with an ugly expression: Let me tell you something: America is a great nation, because we're a united nation, and those who are trying to divide the nation, like you're trying to do here and as our president's doing, are hurting this country seriously. The right course for America is not to divide Americans, and trying to divide us between one and other, is to come together as one as a nation. And if you've got a better model, if you think China's better, or Russia's better, or Cuba's better, or North Korea's better, I'd be glad to hear all about it! But [inaudible] America's right and you're wrong!

Great answer! Anyone who thinks the cavernous disparity between the wealthiest 1% of USians and alllllllll the rest of us is a problem, is a STINKIN' COMMIE! Ha ha perfect. Willard, you are a genius.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Number of the Day

15%: Mitt Romney's effective tax rate.

By comparison, my effective tax rate is almost 50%.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

There is a lot of news about Mitt Romney today. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to read about it any more than I want to write about it.

Here is my Executive Summary: Mitt Romney is a garbage candidate with a garbage ideology and he should never be president, under any circumstances, but especially not when the middle class is teetering on the brink of extinction and we need a robustly funded social safety net more than ever.

The End.

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

Bloomberg: Bankers Seek to Debunk Attack on Top 1%.

Everything about this article is perfectly hilaritragic. I especially looooooove the insistence that the richest people in the country are rich exclusively because of hard work and perseverance. "Instead of an attack on the 1%, let's call it an attack on the very productive." Ha ha sure. Let's do that, fucko.

But first, let's you and I see which one of us works harder in a day. Let's see if you or the last waitress who served you works harder in a day. Let's see if you or any one of the hundreds of people in service jobs with whom you come into contact on a daily basis whose humanity you don't even notice, no less acknowledge, works harder in a day. Let's see if you or a homeless person just trying to stay warm, fed, and alive works harder in a day.

Let's do that math, and then let's indeed call the increasing divide between the haves and the have-nots in this richest country in the world "an attack on the very productive."

Productivity isn't the issue. The kind of work we choose to value and the people whom we choose to do that value is.

Number of the Day

$156 billion: The approximate estimated total of 2011 bonuses at seven of the biggest US banks—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. The total is "slightly larger than last year's record-breaking number."

Perfect. Good for them.