Twenty Bucks, Same as in Town

Busted Knuckles has some nightmare fuel for you. Apparently, our vast datamining apparatus that we thought died with the Congressional ban on TIA is being extended to the tax laws.

Seems the IRS, while letting bankers and other bloated ticks skate on paying their taxes, has found newer and novel ways to go after the little guy. Starting next year, those making $20,000 or 200 online sales a year will be mailed a 1099 form informing them of their taxes. That goes for anyone who sells merchandise on Cafe Press, eBay and Paypal. Uh, Paypal? Oh shit...

---

OK, maybe I have a soft spot for Tom Degan because he's a fellow 51 year-old, native New York liberal but yesterday he wrote a long post resurrecting, as we all should as often as possible, President Eisenhower's warning about the rise of the military-industrial complex and how pertinent it is to the health care debate.

---

Towleroad weighs in with the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the Westboro Baptist Church's right to free speech. Fred Phelps' inbred zombies protested the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq. His father sued, won $11 million in damages which an appellate court cut in half and then later threw out entirely.

It serves to remind us that freedom of speech is a two-edged sword, one that warns us that a grieving family's right to mourn the death of one of their own is somehow on a par with ignorant hate speech.

---

Whether you want to consider an article on Men's Journal a blog posting or not, Matt Taibbi's recent piece on narcissism in the sporting world is certainly worth a read. His rating system ends with, as you would expect, A Rod but who represents the beginning of narcissism may surprise even those of you who follow Boston Red Sox baseball.

---

Going to the Rude Pundit's place is like going to your favorite pornographic bakery. The prices are competitive, the customer service prompt and friendly and the penis-shaped eclairs oozing creamy filling and crullers never fail to delight.

That's why it was a typical treat to read one of his latest on the GOP's twisted definition of misogynism, linking to a list of the "The Ten Most Disgusting Attacks on Conservative Women." It was originally highlighted by Michelle Malkin, who, coincidentally enough, was the target of half of them. Among the charges of lib'ral despicability? Calling Sarah Palin "Barbie" and Liz Cheney "Daddy's girl."

Sounds like a companion piece of top ten Republican moments o' misogynism is in order, starting with John McCain's joke about Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno.

---

D r i f t g l a s s links to a rather depressing article by Steve Rhodes writing about a Chicago NBC affiliate's website in which sourcing was no longer so important.

Suddenly us writers weren't supposed to attribute the news we were writing about to its source, we were to pretend we came up with it by ourselves. Right from our little apartments.

"We don't quote publications, we only quote people," I was told by another new editor.

That meant not quoting from publications, either. They would just take the quote marks off. "That's plagiarism!" I railed.

No, that's the way things have been in the corporate MSM for decades. Now it's merely official.

---

Finally, I give you this video of CNBC basically passing the toxic buck onto homeowners for the financial crisis and pooh-poohing the idea that predatory lending took place. 4-5 minutes in, Janet Tavakoli summarized how it wasn't the homeowners responsible for the crisis but the lying lenders making pie-in-the-sky promises of fixed APRs. The other panelists' heads exploded and Rick Santelli, the Tea Bag Godfather, pipes in at the 6 minute mark by saying, "You can't cheat an honest man."
As Matt Taibbi asked, "You can’t cheat an honest man? What the fuck does that mean?"