Sounds like government has failed and you should put your faith in private institutions.
Sometimes I think maybe the people running the Democratic party aren't stupid. It seems a bit much to attribute to pure luck that the Republicans picked, "Make Kansas not suck" as a test for their program.
I think liberals are overstating the failure here. Sure, the Kansas economy is sputtering, but rich people are paying less taxes. Isn't that what really matters?
1: In this case, conservatism was failed by objective reality, which doesn't have the guts to stand up to Obama.
I'm not sure who deserves credit for this bon mot (Edroso? Digby?), but "Conservatism cannot fail. It can only be failed" captures the essence of the situation perfectly.
Rick Perlstein, no?
Also noteworthy in Kansas is the whole thing with the Democrat dropping out of the Senate race in favor of the independent who may actually be able to beat the Republican incumbent. This may be mentioned in the link, which I of course haven't read.
Not Kansas, but boy is the Texas abortion ruling depressing.
The three-judge panel agreed with the state's lawyers that there was insufficient evidence that a "large fraction" of women seeking abortions would face an unconstitutional burden because of the surgical-center requirements and clinic closings. They wrote that the data provided by one of the plaintiffs' experts, Dr. Daniel Grossman, suggested that about one out of six Texas women seeking an abortion would live more than 150 miles from the nearest clinic if the surgical-center rules went into effect. "This is nowhere near a 'large fraction,' " the panel wrote.
Speaking of right-wing Kansans, apparently the Koch Brothers want to drill for oil on my family's land.
The failures of actually existing free market capitalisn are just more evidence that we need to move in the direction of ideal free market capitalism.
10: or any man with lots of money. But sure, first Sandburg.
12: which is uncomfortably close to my family's line about Marxism.
11: sounds profitable. Are you guys tempted?
13: Did you ever read the New Yorker article about the billionaire who lives someplace like Locust Valley and carefully counts the number of days he spends in his apartment in NYC to avoid paying NYC income taxes. He has an administrative assistant whose whole job is tracking it. One day he should have hung out an extra hour or two at La Guardia to avoid wasting a precious day.
When his wife was dying of cancer, he did say "screw it" and pay up.
16: My mom wants to talk to her lawyer first, but she'll probably agree to it. The way I described it in 11 is not quite accurate; there's another company that already has a lease with us allowing them to drill (although they haven't yet), and Koch Exploration wants to buy it and then sell it to another company, which by the terms of the lease requires our consent. I don't think they're offering us any additional money at this point, but if someone does eventually drill and finds something we'll get some royalties. My mom's very ambivalent about all of it.
17 - It's the billionaire financier Julian Robertson. Fun article.
17: This is common among wealthy Brits. I think Sean Connery spends half a year plus a day in the Bahamas.
17,20: We need to test how dedicated to avoiding taxes these folks truly are.
I propose that we declare the swamps of Ramree island to be a zero tax zone. No taxes at all as long as you spend 4 months of the year there. Of course we'd have to declare it a no building and no weapons allowed zone as well.
22: Like the proverbial monkey trap where they'd be free if they just opened their fist. I like it.
The failures of actually existing free market capitalism are just more evidence that we need to move in the direction of ideal free market capitalism.
Dean Baker seems to be saying something close to this daily, in the spirit of Adam Smith.
Market economics would be a different creature if political power weren't as able to game it, which turns people against market economics as if it were everywhere and always a scam.
It certainly is now, in many particulars, even if it would right itself nicely with some simple policy changes. Which are politically impossible because of entrenched interests.
21. I wonder if that would work today (the link is from 2002), when you can buy from all sorts of retailers online? Could they distinguish a web purchase from an in-house purchase?
17, 20: I had a libertarian Microsoft coworker who retired to spend half a year minus one day in France. He'd explain at length how much better France was, and then complain about socialism.
There's this dude in my program who went back for his PhD after making a zillion with his hedge fund; he has a netjets share so he can travel back and forth between here (where he goes to school full time), Manhattan (where he actually lives) and Dallas (where he pays income tax). It is fascinating to spend time with a dude up close and be like "huh, you're actually evil". Nice enough guy, mostly.
27 Didn't you make that EXACT comment once before?
Maybe not in quite so much detail about the specific locations. He's definitely talked about this guy before, though.
28 to all of my comments from about two years ago through the present. Shoulda prepended AISIMHB.
Here is one mention from a little over a year ago (read up).