Many Americans continue to voice dissatisfaction with high tax rates, specifically in the context of the huge tax increases passed by the current administration.
The data, however, suggests that non-imaginary tax rates have not risen for most individuals. What else could be driving the anger over taxes?
Sabotage by Beastie Boys, also known as the best music video ever.
After a number of recent gay teen suicides, the “It Gets Better” video campaign was developed in hopes of reaching out to gay/bisexual/transgendered teens feeling isolated and depressed. In only a month, the campaign has amassed thousands of videos speaking out against gay-bashing and encouraged teens to reach out for help instead of self-harming or committing suicide.
There is no doubt that the campaign is trying to help teens, but does ‘It gets better’ promote the tolerance of bullies and homophobes at the same time? Those who believe themselves to be taking a more honest approach have made “it doesn’t get better” videos which have received much backlash, event though they are honest, non-homophobic, free of ridicule and often made by someone gay or transgendered.
It should have been the dumbest tattoo ever inked. Or at least since Mike Tyson went tribal on his left eye. Seasoned shooting guard Jason Terry got carried away during a Mavericks team powwow at DeShawn Stevenson’s pad last October. The whole team was there, Stevenson’s personal tattoo artist as well.
Terry wanted to pump up the boys. But the usual Us Vs. The World rah-rah wasn’t cutting it this time. Not with Kobe, Phil and the Lakers gunning for another three-peat. Not with the Thunder a year older. And not with the Big Two & A Half already shopping ring insets down in South Beach.
So Jason Terry had the Larry O’Brien trophy emblazoned to his right bicep. Right then and there. He would have the tattoo removed if the Mavericks fell short. He would have to, the league smirked. Because this was the Dallas Mavericks. The Buffalo Bills of the NBA. The proverbial one-and-done team that always followed the same script: Dirk put up his 24 points a night, they’d win 50-something games, lock up a four or five seed in the West, and bow out early to some young upstart like the Blazers or the Grizzlies.
[Editor’s Note: We’d like to give a warm, wet, PBH welcome to our newest contributor, Chet Hardrock. Chet is an unemployed feline tax-consultant who enjoys vintage daytime television and spouting drunken conspiracy-theories involving the CIA, the John Birch Society, Martha Stewart, and an undead Wayne Newton. He will be joining PBH as a statistical analyst/political pundit/sports hobo.]
Democrats and Republicans have struck on a rare point of consensus; despite a 9% unemployment rate and anemic GDP growth, the potential threat of higher interest rates on US government bonds makes additional stimulus impossible. A survey of leading economic policymakers reveals some of the other hypothetical situations that prevent them from supporting more recovery measures.
