Tax Rates are Not Lower. Tax Revenues are.

The new meme issuing from the White House is that tax rates are at historically low levels (E.J. Dionne burbled this in his last idiotic column). As the Washington Examiner points out, this is hogwash (h/t: Insty). What's low is tax revenues as a percentage of GDP.

And why?

But the AP went on to report that the recession and tax loopholes, not lower tax rates, were the cause of the revenue drop: “The poor economy is largely to blame, with corporate profits down and unemployment up. But so is a tax code that grows each year with new deductions, credits and exemptions.”

So the Democrats are using the current degraded state of the economy as justification for continued reckless, ineffective spending. And are now prepared to waste the nation's time in a fruitless game of whack-a-loophole instead of reforming the tax code.

Hope. Change.

Anthony Weiner: The Stupid Continues UPDATED

Another woman comes forward with Weiner pics.

That line about being hacked pranked joshed with sure is workin' out for ya.

UPDATE: And another... 

AND ANOTHER: Game Over. 

WienerGate: Synopsis.

I always feel bad for people surnamed Wiener. Everyone who dislikes them has an instant, lazy insult. So I have steered clear of Anthony Wiener (D-NY), however silly and irritating he would seem to be, because it's just too easy.

But for a man, surnamed Wiener, to (allegedly) send a picture of his...(*sigh*) wiener to a woman not his wife? On Twitter?  Seriously?

Baby Doc Duvalier Splits Atoms...With His Mind

I mentioned earlier that Baby Doc returned to Haiti and was promptly arrested and prevented from leaving the country. Now we have some indication as to what prompted him to show his face:

Duvalier, 59, made the trip just before a Swiss law that could entitle him to at least $4.6 million takes effect on Feb. 1. To collect the funds, he would have to show Haitian authorities aren't interested in prosecuting him.

So he tried to collect money by proving that Haiti wasn't going to prosecute him, which he did by showing up in Haiti, where they are now prosecuting him.

Dictator Rule #1

If you get gone, stay gone:

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was charged with corruption and the theft of his country's meagre funds last night after the former Haitian dictator was hauled before a judge in Port-au-Prince

Two days after his return to the country he left following a brutal 15-year rule, a noisy crowd of his supporters protested outside the state prosecutor's office while he was questioned over accusations that he stole public funds and committed human rights abuses after taking over as president from his father in 1971.

I honestly did not see this coming. I assumed that if Baby Doc was coming home, that he would have, you know, some kind of a plan for surviving, something to avoid this kind of nonsense. Of course, maybe he does. Papa Doc surely would have. But this is Baby, so...

Right-Wing Rhetoric is So Violent, and Man Do I Wanna Slap Sarah Palin!

Via Carthago Delenda Est, another example of great lengths to which the left is willing to go to improve the tone of our national discourse, to calm the raging waters of our rhetorical madness.

The blogger (who is not the cartoonist) responds to objections thusly:

Now look at the first few comments there. It's people complaining that the cartoon is in bad taste! Good grief, have you people ever actually listened to Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage or looked at Sarah Palin's campaign strategy? I say again, madness.

See? All you have to do is look at them, and you know that they are scum who deserve nothing. And are way too angry all the time. It's so frightening!