Seeing the Norquist byline, I for some reason imagined I was about to read Norquist's writing, rather than Norquist copying someone else's homework. Silly me.

The morality of invading a sovereign nation which has not attacked ours and torturing and killing its citizens, is the same morality which underpins the Holocaust.

Are you remembering to send care packages to your buddy Abramoff while he's in prison?

Godwin's Law, my friend. Please don't take over the thread.

Grover Norquist has been implicated in some of Jack Abramoff's money laundering schemes. As such, he is an unindicted criminal. He is only slightly more trustworthy than GWBush or Karl Rove.

As such, I assume everything he writes is packed with lies unless it is proven otherwise.

Mr. Norquist:

Now that a Conservative President has in fact drowned government -- though not in a bathtub -- at New Orleans, can you say "Mission Accomplished" for the Conservative Movement?

Or is the best yet to come?

Grover --

Have you adjusted your charts for demographics? In other words were Colorado's population's characteristics the same in 1997 as they were in 2004? What, if any, were the effects of in-migration? Changes in the economy -- that is, reductions in farming, ranching, and manufacturing and increases in IT and financial services?

Are we truly comparing apples with apples?

How much of this oil-and-gas state's economic expansion can be attributed to the nearly quadrupling of oil prices between 1998 and 2004? 

[deleted by management]*

*funny, but way over the line.

Quoting the Independence Institute is like quoting yourself, Norquist. It's intellectually dishonest and it's fakey.

In point of fact, TABOR has been a disaster for CO. Of course, from my point of view, it was very successful. It took a reddish state, and made it reliably blue. After Nov 2008, CO will have 2 democratic senators, 2 more democratic HoR members, and will have more state reps and senators who are democratic.

I predict, here and now, that the scumbag Lamport in Colorado Springs and the scumbag Musgrave will both lose.

And TABOR will have a huge amount to do with it. TABOR has demonstrated that, when it's time to act like an adult and actually pay for dinner after eating it, you cannot trust a Repukeliscum. They will invariably try to go out the fire escape to avoid their obligations.

Today's Repukeliscum are all basically teenagers with dad's car, the family credit card and no idea of their responsibilities. How did they get like this?

[deleted by management]

I'm not an economist, but it seems as though the case for causality is pretty weak.

Why do the graphs start at 1992? What was CO's GSP increase relative to the national average before TABOR. If Mr. Norquist's implication that TABOR caused the increase as opposed to some preexisting trajectory, we should see a clear difference in GSP growth before and after TABOR. That's not necessarily a proof of causality, but the case would be made stronger if that were included.

What is CO's median personal income growth and how has that changed before and after TABOR? CO's employment growth like before and after TABOR? Mr. Norquist is implying that TABOR was the cause of this but he hasn't shown that and any academic journal would reject his claim based on this data. He may very well be right, but he has not given any credible evidence here.

Those charts are simply lies and dishonest totally. He attempts to say that, since CO did better than the national average, TABOR was the reason.

[deleted by management]

There are 100 reasons why this might be, and TABOR is one. It is a dishonest lie to claim that it is the reason, when 99 other things might have been the reason just as much.

[deleted by management]

Independence Institute? That's the best you can do? A bought-and-paid-for astroturf organization?

Not credible. Go back to being irrelevant.

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

The one comparing progressive taxation with Nazism?

Let's cool it with the f-bomb eh folks?

I would just like everybody to know that TABOR has been very good for me. Now, I've never lived in Colorado but in all the years that Colorado has had TABOR (basically since I got out of college) my earnings have been going up!

I don't know how it is that TABOR has caused this miracle but I don't want it messed up.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Well, son, you just have to understand that a lot of people see someone like Mr. Norquist, whose outright lies and poor advice has led to a LOT of misery in their fellow citizens, and I'd think most of us just want to hold him accountable--in a small way-- for the evil he's championed, endorsed, and created. We all see it in our friends and relatives and co-workers. Is there anyone tht doesn't know anyone devestated by the turn the Country hs taken?

I must say, however, that I feel this type of crossover attempt by these conservatives is very encouraging, and perhaps we SHOULD try to cool it, but frankly, after two days of Congressional nonsense, by clones of Mr. Norquist here, it's just hard. (As the President is wont to say).

For that I apologize. These right-wing idealogue folks have a lot to answer for, and it's infuriating to hear such weak justifications for so much incompetence.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

This is just stupid. Taxes overall are so low that they don't inhibit growth--the only question is whether taxes are high enough on the wealthy to support the investments in people and infrastructure that are necessary to sustainable growth.

For God's sake, look at the economic growth of Taxachusetts using Grover's preferred stat. From TABOR time until the latest data ('97-'06), when Colorado had a 45.9% increase in personal income per capita, Taxachusetts had a 50.4% increase.

And, Taxachusetts started off with a higher base income. So, while the people in Colorado went from 26 grand to just under 39 grand, the people of Massachusetts went from 30 grand to over 45 grand! More growth no matter how you look at it.

Hey, maybe gay marriage causes economic growth! New Jersey, home of civil unions, had personal income growth of 44.5% (from $32k to over $46k), and Vermont, which also had civil unions, grew 48.9% (from $23k to $34k).

I've just proved this point BETTER than Grover proved his "lower taxes on the wealthy and you'll magically generate growth" one.

http://www.nylovesbiz.com/nysdc/Personalincome/stpcpi9706.pdf

.> [deleted by management]*

I am really curious about all this 'deleting by management'. Grover Norquist is the person who has publicly advocated that all Democratic politicians should be castrated, and who only stopped talking about "drowning government in a bathtub" /after/ Katrina. What exactly are regular posters saying here that warrants deletion by management rather than TU ratings?

sPh

I think this is the first time I have EVER rated, but there is no way this deserves a trollish score. It may be OT, but if we're going to down-rate for that, the collective karma around here will look like Mario Mendoza's batting average. (Inside joke for aging Pirate fans.)

Andrew, don't you have something productive to do? Every time you intrude in a debate you embarrass yourself. Every time someone invokes Godwin and declares victory, I wonder why he/she didn't also declare him/herself Emperor of Sheboygan.

Let's cool it with the imperious interference with a debate, eh Andrew?

May I point out that:

• Ammasdarling was describing the assumption he would make and made no reference to proof;


• The concept of "innocent until proven guilty" applies to judicial proceedings, not the reasoned judgements of individuals, who would be hamstrung by such an ethic;


• A determination based on the theory that "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior" is likely to yeild accurate results more often than not; and


• Another tenant of our society concerns the right to express one's opinion and have it heard, but Andrew seems to feel unconstrained by that principle.

=== Another tenant of our society concerns the right to express one's opinion and have it heard, ===

if you look at state employment growth here

CO isn't especially standout.. it's barely in the top 20.

I may not have expressed myself clearly in that paragraph, whose thrust was intended to be: If Andrew is going to ignore one constitutional/democratic/magna-carterial(????) principle, why must ammasdarling adhere to another?

I agree that it is not in the least clear that Andrew should delete; but this is certainly not the first time he has played footsie with a controversial front-pager of whom he is proud of netting.

I think everyone is being too hard on Mr. Norquist. Like Rove, I'm sure he has the math on this. It's such a bizarre world when even math is made partisan.

Toss-up: Of which are we more ashamed?

>> Management coddling of an insipid article from a known serial charlatan, or

>> OT ad hominem attacks by people with nothing germane to say about the actual subject at hand?

At least Rove needed an election to demonstrate his lack of computational alacrity. Mr. Norquist's case is invalid on its face. As several others have implied here, it's post hoc ergo propter hoc, and does not carry its point even if it weren't.

He's a contemporary BUNKSHOOTER

I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works
except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory
except the face of the woman on the American
silver dollar.

I ask you to come through and show me where you're
pouring out the blood of your life.

--Sandburg

Throwing tomatoes at Mr. Norquist's ideas is fine, admirable, necessary. Filling the nimiety of holes in his arguments with decayed vegetables is good sharpshooting.

However, throwing ordure at his head demeans the thrower far more than the target, and leaves one's hands covered in excrement.

Did anyone else notice that the two charts presented are identical? Indeed, while one purports to be concerned with Personal Income Growth and the other with Employment Growth, both are clearly labelled "personal income growth", use identical measurements on the vertical axis and show identical slopes.

Perhaps Mr. Norquist simply replicates the one chart because in his common experience, the majority of readers in his usual audience won't notice this obvious shortcoming and will simply think "Two charts!! Double True!!" or something similarly "ditto-esque."

Of course, at bottom the article amounts to propaganda: an intellectually dishonest attempt to create a cause-effect relationship out of whole cloth and an utter failure to account for other potential causes.

Compare, inter alia, "If you lower taxes people will work harder and be more productive," "Mr. Clinton, if you raise taxes in your 1993 tax bill, you will destroy the economy by undermining the incentives for entrepreneurs to innovate," "Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction that could reach the West in 45 minutes", "We must give up our civil liberties for national security, to fight the terrorists, who hate us for our freedoms."

Just lazy, inept, corrupt or some combination of the three.

Thank you for your civility, and playing the Alan Colmes part here, however, parent was referring to Grover's Godwinizing of the Estate Tax:

from Wikipedia:

A small controversy erupted after an interview between Norquist and Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air program. In the interview, Grover Norquist compared the morality that allows the estate tax to that which permitted the Holocaust. When pressed, Norquist noted that this was not a direct comparison, but rather a response to what he saw as apathy against a supposed government assault on a small group of citizens.

this is a driveby. no comments from grover.

sissy pants scaredy cat.

Not all discussions are based on the attempt to reach a common consensus based on facts for the good of all participants. Anyone who thinks this comment by Norquist contains any veracity of purpose or reason need to step back and reconsider his or her view of reality.

What you are seeing here is an attempt to profess goodness of purpose when there is none to be had in any view of the gentleman’s history. Norquist’s post is out of character and its only purpose is to sell the false proposition, my stuff is fertilizer not offal!

This post is a cover, a distraction, a distraction of purpose to say “I advocate things that have good results for all” when there is none to be found in Norquists life view. If by accident any good occurs the results would be looked on as a waste of good assets. Greed and delusion is all there is to be found in his actions. Sorrow and despair are the results on the majority of the citizens in any state taking up his agenda.

Billy the Kid said he robbed banks because that was where the money is.
Norquist could be viewed as saying; I want to diminish the Government because
it is only through Government that citizens can group together to counter
the unlawful actions and greed my supporters and I rely on.

-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking

Turn that graph upside down and you have the value of the shrinking US dollar under Bush and his tax cutting self aggrandizing Republican flim flam men like Norquist.

The same thing struck me. Comparing growth rate of Colorado to national average and then attributing the higher rate of the former to some tax program is just bad analysis of the Post hoc ergo propter hoc variety

It's not clear to me that deleting the f word is "playing footsie," but whatever.

See David's front page post. Norquist was invited by Greg to debate his book because the book specifically attacks him and Greg thought it would be interesting to have him respond.

Yeah, but we're usually allowed to curse a bit when Grover isn't watching.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Why do you think it was interesting, Greg? He showed up here with two charts and used them to try to respond to your book. Almost every commenter zeroed in on the problem immediately: that Grover's comparison of Colorado to the national average was inapt and that even if it were apt, it didn't say what he thought it did. After all the commenters made that point in principle, you made the same point with data.

This is Grover freaking Norquist, supposedly an intellectual leader on the right. Debating with him certainly might have been interested. But he barely even tried to make a point. Unless he comes back to answer the fatal objections to what he posted, this experiment will fall far short of interesting.

Heck, the metadebate about TPM management's sudden comment patrolling vigilance has been far more interesting than arguing with Grover.

C'mon back, Grover. Put a little effort in. Surprise me!

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

You're funny! And correct.

We must not offend Grover's delicate child-like sensibilities, else he will have his GOP cronies in the Senate bring up a denunciation of TPM and accuse it of being more unpatriotic than MoveOn.

May I recommend you do as I often do and replace one vowel as in "f*ck it!"? No cursing there and the point is still made.

What say you, host Andrew? Acceptable compromise?

demeans the thrower

Not only that, but that excrement remains permanently searchable via google. The cluelessness of some supposedly savvy "liberal netroots" about the net itself never fails to amaze me, they write as if under the illusion they are in some kind of protected cocoon where nobody is seeing them, while in reality all the world can read it.

Any "freeper" in the next few years searching for "Norquist," can mine this thread for links to "proof" that "liberals" are not capable of reasonable arguments except for, as you say above, "ad hominem attacks by people with nothing germane to say about the actual subject at hand." Give the ad hominens "high fives" in ratings and you give the "freeper" more proof of his framing of the whole community.

If I were on Norquist's side, I would think: go ahead, knock yourself out looking like foaming idiots with heads ready to burst, the more the merrier, makes my stuff look sensible and reasonable.

"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such."

There's a lot to dislike about Grover - his noxious and absurd policy ideas, his affiliation with deceivers and cheats, his junior-high response here. But I say this with all seriousness: There are lots of clowns and cretins in Washington, but nobody does it with as much style and taste as Grover. You could fill a book with his witty and memorable smack-talk (somebody probably already has).

An intellectual he is not, but life would be more interesting if there were more people in Washington with the rhetorical talent Grover possesses. The quote above is one of the best bits of smack talk I've ever read. If somebody forced Harry Reid to read Norquist quotes for a week, he could all only hope that some of that flair would rub off.

Why is TPM giving space to this amoral, crooked reprobate to spread more of his baloney? This charlatan needs a swift kick to the groin, not recognition.

Works for me!

While Norquist gets free speech rights (oh, darn), inviting him here gets close to yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I wonder how many morning coffees spilled into the keyboard, or sprayed across the screen?

Although, for me, it was more a case of "Oh, boy, this will be fun!"

Drive by indeed--of course Grover would never actually read the comments and respond--he was paid to put up some agitprop supporting TABOR, and that he did, with as little effort as possible.

My guess is that he's trying to fill the hole in his budget that grew when his good buddy Jack Abramoff's wingnut welfare scam got shut down.

I see El Campesino is on a roll again.  Funny, s(he) didn't jump into the fray until we started talking about throwing tomatoes.

Neoboho

Careful, Andrew...remember how Kurt Vonnegut translated the asterix in (as I recall) Welcome to the Monkey House.  I was either a squashed arachnid or a rendering of an asshol*.

Neoboho

Grover is far too easy a target, but that is probably why Mr. Anrig offered the bait. Rather than a punching bag, it would behoove TPM to bring in a credible conservative who is not the poster-child for the intellectual and ethical bankruptcy of the Bush-era GOP.

That said, it was a helluva lotta fun poking at this particular stuffed shirt.

.... now back to work.....

I'll bet that undr Tabor Colorado really kicked Mississippi's butt.

I second the appreciation, provided that "engage us" is code for "display contempt for our intelligence."

Valdron, since the Saudi's won't pony up financially to put Iranians in control in Iraq, and Bush is trying to turn the US dollar into the North American equivalent of the Argentine peso, do you think our socialist gov't controlled healthcare friends north of the border would pay for the next four years of the Iraq fiasco?

What's a bloody trillion to Bank of Canada?

LOL...Mr. Drown Government in the Bathtub has made a personal appearance here himself.

Just one question Mr. Norquist...how's the drowning going?  It seems your boy Georgie has vastly increased the size of the government.  Ahhhhh...but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.  

~

Please excuse my being late to the table. Unlike Grover, I've been busy traipsing the breadth of our great country, actually doing something positive to help grow the economy, it's called work.

[deleted by management]*

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

On behalf of myself and myself only, I would like to express my shock and disappointment at some of Americans for Tax Reform's rhetorical and pointless diatribes and false self-assessments.

The nitty-gritty of what I'm about to write is this: It's possible that the ostensible basis for Americans for Tax Reform's speech codes are as phony as the loose, self-established biased standards applied to enforce them. However, I cannot speculate about that possibility here because I need to devote more space to a description of how if my memory serves me correctly, Americans for Tax Reform has been out of control, like an overnight star from American Idol thinking that they are the first and last in their field. End of story.

Actually, I should add that "Americans for Tax Reform" has now become part of my vocabulary. Whenever I see someone exercise control through indirect coercion or through psychological pressure, manipulation or plain old B**S***T, I tell him or her to stop "Americans for Tax Reform-ing."

One of the great mysteries of modern life is, what is this pestilential fascination Americans for Tax Reform has with navel gazing? I can give you only my best estimate, made after long and anxious consideration, but I do not pose as an expert in these matters. I can say only that we cannot afford to waste our time, resources, and energy by dwelling upon the inequities of the past proposed by this bunch. Instead, we must be forward looking and continue to uphold democracy and equality. Doing so would be significantly easier if more people were to understand that if Americans for Tax Reform opened its eyes, it'd realize that investigators who have spent many years attempting to penetrate the dark recesses of its paltry underworld frequently conclude that its memoranda are attributable to an ignorance born of fear, and an unbridled desire to help establish some lascivious form of authoritarian control.

I want to make this clear, so that those who do not understand deeper messages embedded within sarcastic irony (and you know who I'm referring to) can process my point. For your information, there is a format Americans for Tax Reform should follow for its next endeavor in hogwash. It involves a topic sentence and supporting facts.

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I shall not argue that Americans for Tax Reform's newsgroup postings are an authentic map of crap of its plan to undermine the truly democratic processes of government. Investigate, understand them and see for yourself.

I'll give you an example of this, based on my own experience. As you know, if you think about it you'll see that Americans for Tax Reform's impertinent tirades are merely a distraction. They're just something to generate more op-ed pieces, more news conferences for media talking heads, and more punditry, not too mention that the few in the top echelon of their organization reap a tidy personal income by pulling the proverbial wool over the eyes of their unsuspecting serfs.

Meanwhile, Americans for Tax Reform's legatees are continuing their quiet work of advancing Americans for Tax Reform's real goal, which is to foster suspicion, if not outright hatred, of anything and everything that is actually compassionate and thereby truly progressive.

Americans for Tax Reform have continued to play fast and loose with the truth. If you consider this an exception to the rule then you obviously don't understand how Americans for Tax Reform operates.

I hope, however, that you at least understand that its desire to do the entire country a grave disservice is incontrovertible evidence that Americans for Tax Reform harbors some humorless grudges, if not downright nefarious motives. Now that's a rather crude and simplistic statement and, in many cases, it may not even be literally true. But there is a sense in which it is generally true, a sense in which it truly expresses how Americans for Tax Reform likes to compare its ebullitions to those that shaped this nation. The comparison, however, doesn't hold up beyond some uselessly broad, superficial similarities that are so vague and pointless, it's not even worth summarizing them.

Thus, in summing up, we can establish the following: a) It's really hard to take someone as insensitive as Americans for Tax Reform very seriously, BUT WE MUST! and b) Americans for Tax Reform is designed to create and continue to cause chaos within the long established order of America.

Now go ahead delete that sucker!

~OGD~

~

... refuse to yield a centimeter to intellectual amoeba like Norquist ...

Or yield to the cafe's wannabe Alan Colmes ....

~OGD~