double clutch deleted

I'm surprised Norquist hasn't been charged with anything yet. The St. Petersburg Times reported last year that the Islamic Institute, an outreach group Norquist co-founded, received $35,000 in donations in 1999 from activist Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in prison this year for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

Norquist was also Jack Abramoff's a**hle buddy and co conspirator in the Indian Casino scandal. Ol Grover was getting $25,000 for every Indian Casino transaction he laundered for Abramoff.

I wonder also why he isn't in the news more often for his nefarious deeds.

I know this is essentially ad hominem, but isn't Norquist the guy who has a portrait of Josef Stalin hanging either in his home or office?

To me he's sort of the "Brown Eminence" of the Right.

-Dave Adams-

One of the big unions was looking into whether Grover Norquist illegally funneled $800K from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to the National Alliance for Worker and Employer Rights (NAWER).

According to the Americans For Tax Reform 990s, the $800k took the form of two grants, $600k in 2004 and $200k in 2005. Almost all of the other ATR grants are less than $100k.

Idea for a novel.

"Atlas, Eh"
by Destor 23

The world's hedge fund managers go on strike and a restaurant in Greenwich, Ct. is forced to stop charging $400 for truffle-infused entres. The global economy is effected in myriad ways, none of which will be documented but which will be mentioned many times on the Op-Ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Soon, spring turns to summer and summer to autumn. Other things go on, as usual.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I propose referring to him as Grover from now on, just to avoid raising prejudice against Swedes.  On second thought, that would just shift to prejudice against Grovers, who have enough trouble as it is. 

Perhaps this is the solution...do like we do with bullsh*t.  Nobody seems to be developing a prejudice against the asterisk.  So from now on let's just call him Gr*v*r N*rq*&st.  He needs a vowel movement, and he's made an asterisk out of himself anyhow.

aMike

I kinda wondered why Grover doesn't take this to its logical conclusion. The most obvious example would be the treatment of income of plaintiff's personal injury lawyers working on a contingency fee. After all, they invest a great deal of time (and often resources) in a fairly high risk venture (i.e., the majority of such cases that fully go to trial end up in defendant's verdicts).

Now if Grover added this heretofore unappreciated constituency to his entrepenurial coalition, he'd be in business!

Grover Norquist is like a whore, a liar, a charlatan, and a miscreant. He seems to be willing do or say anything for money--for anyone--but he means none of it, like the commonest street walker hooker whistling from the edge of a dark alley. He appears to have no values other than getting over, and no principles other than taking money from anybody with a two dollar bill sticking out of their hot little fist. The public should know this about Grover. His record of whoredom is all in the public domain. They used to tar and feather scoundrels like him.

"If you talk about it, even the simplest thing becomes complex and incomprehensible." -Herman Hesse

Would that same Econ 101 course suggest that the present wealth distribution is inefficient and induce more people to become Power Ball lottery winners at a rate greater than a free market would accommodate?

My econ 101 course included skills and knowledge as economic levers. Right or wrong, real or bluff, hedge fund managers get the premium because of who and what they know.

They pay folks like Norquist to lobby congress for some perks because they can afford to. It's like they're a union unto themselves. What Norquist has figured out is that the best lobbying approach is to bully and threaten Republicans, or face the wrath of the conservatives he marshals.

In the meanstwhile, the unions representing more than one hedge fund manager, i.e. teachers, truck drivers, steel workers, services, etc., are weakening.

I learned in philosophy 101 that pure, unaudulterated capitalism, is illogical since the end result, all capital in the hands on one man/woman, would make said capital worthless. It was a theoretical discussion then, and a more practical discussion now.

/c

In the blogosphere every one is an expert, so no one is an expert.

The fact that Norquist still has influence on the debate leads to the question; Are ther any true believer conservatives left in power? Norquist is so transparent a whore I don't see how anyone with a shred of integrity could stomach having a conversation with him, much less doing his bidding. The only reason to do so is because you are getting a cut.

As for this particular debate, I have long agreed with our republican brethren about the capital gains tax; it should be cut. In fact it should be abolished. Call it what it is for most people who use it; INCOME!

Now we will hear about the poor store owner who worked all his life for the one payoff when he sells his business. I have no problem with giving a break to the people for whom that is true, but there are other ways to do that. We could let them hide the big payout in an account and pay straight income on it only as they use it. We could set up a once or twice a lifetime exemption.

But the sad truth is this tax break for the rich is used every year by the same people and has become nothing more than a special preferred tax rate on unearned income.

Then the mouthpieces of the rich will try to scare the average middle class taxpayer with a cry of,"It's a new tax on investments! YOU have investments! Tell Congress to stop this!" They won't tell the plebians that they don't get this break on 401K's and IRA's. Every dollar that comes out of those widespread investments is taxed as straight income. You don't avoid it, you merely defer it. If you've been smart enough that your retirement income is higher than your working income you might even lose money on the deal if you get bumped into a higher bracket.

The whole thing makes me sick. It's just a bunch of the uberstinkingrich trying to avoid paying for the government that protects their privilege. Hey, if you hate taxes that much, go live out in the woods and suck acorns.

Exactly, that's why I'm so adamant that the truly libertarian solution is to cut spending so that you can give the schoolteacher the same economic freedom as the fund manager.

It's probably fair to call the act of subsidizing one profession over another a sort of "big government", but it's not hard to think of "solutions" that would fix the subsidy without makeing the government any smaller, e.g. raising everyone's taxes to 80% including fund managers'.

I wonder what happens to currency when all the Grovers in the world get it all -- then there's like none left to run the systems that generate profits, like blood pooling in one foot. I don't see how currency means a damned thing if it's not circulating throughout the entire economic body.

Further, I believe it is humans that give value to currency, not the reverse. The world that the Grover-cons envision can't be fit for human beings.

Maybe they're aliens.

On July 25, 2007 - 5:05am Quicksilver said:

I wonder what happens to currency when all the Grovers in the world get it all -- then there's like none left to run the systems that generate profits, like blood pooling in one foot.

What happens is that the Grovers of the world turn on one another and start eating their own.