A tax is a financial charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state…

Has Bill Maher become a mouthpiece for the Likud?

Tom Bombadil seems to think so:

Bill Maher: The Dennis Miller of the Likud Party

Whereas the show used to be oftentimes a riot, it now seems stale and contrite – almost “staged” even, to a degree, though I am sure it is not.

Marnie

—————
http://www.etrusoft.com

Andrew Sullivan Grabs …

What the hell does he have to do with the price of china in Egglund here, huh?

Ya’ll have gone way damn off thread here, bigtime.

Of course, the thread remains where it should stay. Where�s that? Where I want to put it, of course.

You’re welcome.

Now, what’s all this brew high house about this Chumpski guy anyway ?

Someone up top mentioned something about Bob Dylan too. Well, ain’t that special !

And yes, so avent garde, too. (or however they spose to spell that there word.)

Everyone get over this chump. Use your own judgment about politics, life, etc. for gosh sakes ! ! !

Either that, or just get own back to where ya done come from�drinkin� a brandy with a cigar in your hand near the edge of some campus of one of the great universities of the universe.

Be a legend in ya� own damn mind ! Us legends work !

*****

Although there was much to criticize in American domestic and
foreign policy, what struck me was the one-sidedness, unfairness, and systematic use of the double standard in the attacks against the United States and South Vietnam. … He called upon the United States “to denazify itself,” but not North Vietnam or China. What practices in the United States, compared to the barbarous practices of Cuba or of China or of North Vietnam, warrant such a characterization? In those countries how long would one survive who whispered the kind of criticisms Chomsky was perfectly free to broadcast in the United States and be rewarded for it?
— Sidney Hook, _Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the Twentieth
Century_, 1987

The United States was taxed with following a policy whose logic was “genocide” for helping South Vietnam deal with “a peasant-based insurrection led by Communists” while the genuinely
genocidal practices of North Vietnam in liquidating whole categories of the population were not mentioned. On his visit to Hanoi, Chomsky publicly held North Vietnam up to the world as a model of social justice and freedom. Whenever Chomsky and those who repeated some of his absurd views were challenged, they often cited as their authority someone else who had uttered similar absurdities, as if this vindicated the point they were making.
— ibid

The grim consequences of … Hanoi’s victory are now incontestable. The record of the last decade has brought a
realization to some, who had been of the same view as Chomsky, of what they helped to bring into being in Vietnam. Protests have been organized against the continued existence of concentration and re-education camps, and the systematic barbarities practiced against dissenters. But Chomsky is still unrepentant. He has refused to join any protest, on the ground that it would serve the interests of the United States. In short, he has followed the double standard to the last, for he never hesitated to utter the most extravagent criticism of the United States on the ground that it would serve the interests of the Soviet Union.
— ibid

Amen from another native Nebraska Democrat.

One Republican talking-point that I am sick to death of is the assertion that Democrats are nothing but a bunch of arrogant, latte drinking, elitist liberals from NY’s Upper West Side who are nothing but condescending to the red-staters. This seems to me to be not an honest point, but an intellectually dishonset strategy to undermine an opponent’s argument.

-Facing a liberal opponent? Don’t actually debate them–that might imply that your opponent actually has a valid point of view, and you don’t want to validate your opponent in any way whatsoever. Instead of arguing, attempt to nullify you opponent’s entire position by slandering them or by making accusations of condescension, elitism, liberalism…

If I am ever skeptical or critical of Christians and conservatives, it does not spring from some elitist, ivory tower point of view–I was born among Christians and conservatives. I gew up among christians and conservatives. I am seriously outnumbered in my own family among Christians and conservatives.

And BTW, it does seem a bit petulant and self-indulgent for conservatives to suddenly start whining about others somehow treating them unfairly or condescendingly. Where I live, conservatives openly and unabashedly use the word “liberal” as a scornful invective [and in mixed company, no less]. I’ve been openly put down for my liberal sensibilities my entire life.

Also, as a gay man…well, growing up gay in middle America isn’t a Norman Rockwell experience. It’s a little hard to take pity on the Christian Right for feeling condescended to when taunting, insulting and demonizing gays and lesbians has always been an essential part of their modus operandi.

Patrick Buchanan sits on a panel on MSNBC and self-righteously complains of liberal condescension to conservatives one minute, then moralistically denounces gays as sodomites unworthy of basic civil liberties the next minute?

PS–Andrew Sullivan is a big girl anyway.

This Nebraskan Democrat on a family farm is rather glad you’re off visiting a blue state somewhere instead of on my doorstep. Pffft. Think of me next time you eat a loaf of my un-American elitist bread.

You go!, girrl.

Thanks for a good, out-loud laug.

Yes, there were way too many liberals on the program that night, but they too have the right of free speech, at least for a little while longer. Some of us who live in this great country often wonder why when the rest of the world soes something we don’t like, they are evil, but when we do it, it is acceptible. While I would never equate the current administration with Hitler, his invasion of Poland was based on “the fear that Poland would attack” With what- the Horse cavalry? We attacked a country that had no airforce (thanks to our no fly zone), no missles that could travel more than 3000 miles, etc.
Now I had to do a position paper in which I backed the war, based on everything I had read and heard at the time. Guess what- I was wrong, and I admit it. Why is it so wrong to admit when you’ve f***ed up? I think that what infuriates Blue staters like myself is the denial that the US ever does anything wrong, be it preemptive wars, installing dictators, funneling money to those who would elect political opinions that we don’t subscribe to, etc.

In plain English, we are also human and so are our leaders. If we are held accountable for our actions by our bosses, spouses, society, etc., shouldn’t our leaders also be accountable?