It’s hard to keep up on what’s happening in the conservative media echo chamber. Sure, I here this and that. I even occasionally read articles in the National Review, although these tend toward the most reasonable of the conservative commentators. I’ve only been vaguely aware of the push of Darrell Issa’s call for an investigation of the terrorist attacks on the embassy in Libya. It is all so exhausting. Don’t these people have real work to do? Is their entire reason for life to stand around waiting for a thread they can grab onto that will cause the entire administration to unravel?

Don’t answer that. I already know: their entire reason for life is exactly this. And although they were different people, this is what their doppelgangers did during the Clinton administration. It is pathetic. I guess the idea is that they aren’t going to do any work until they’re in power. Until then, they will only do things that might help them get into power. I really worry about this country.

The deceptions regarding this made up scandal are even bigger than I had though. Thankfully, Liberal Viewer does the dangerous work of actually watching Fox News. And as usual, he’s great. You really should subscribe to his channel.

I am so tired of Mitt Romney, but I’ve got to write about this. The Serious Set are all a titter about Romney’s announcement that he is going to cap deductions at $17,000. I don’t know exactly what this will do to middle class income taxes. But this is more or less the same old song: Romney wants to change federal income taxes such that the top 1% will save huge amounts of money. He would prefer to make the middle class pay for this, but it is politically untenable. So instead, he plans to make the upper class (minus the 1%) pay for it.

This is the main way that Romney has countered the Tax Policy Center study. The claim is, “We don’t have to raise taxes on the middle class; instead, we can decimate the well off making between $100,000 and $200,000.” I don’t cry a lot of tears for this group of people, but it is clearly wrong to screw them for the sake of the 1% who, to put it mildly, have done really well by the tax code.

But this fact doesn’t seem to bother Ezra Klein, who tweeted:

But if you actually read Ezra Klein’s column on it, it is just a bunch of questions. And it ends in a way that—to me—is a big “Fuck you!” to the Romney campaign:

In other words, “I contacted the Romney campaign and they provided me with the usual bullshit: trust me!”

We get the same thing from Josh Barro. But more so. Barro is very impressed with Romney’s new direction. But when he gets down to the specifics, he’s even more skeptical. His point 6 is particularly telling:

In other words: it’s bullshit, but I’m a conservative so, “Yea!”

Note the timing of this announcement: just before the debate. This is so it will be out long enough to sound credible during the debate but not long enough for the Tax Policy Center to analyze it and show that it is just as bad as his previous proposals.

Update (3 October 2012 1:31 pm)

Over at WonkBlog, they are very interested in this topic—big surprise. Suzy Khimm has written an article, Who’s likely to be hit by Romney’s deduction cap? The rich and middle-class urbanites. It notes that 25% of the mortgage interest deduction goes to the 1%. This is shockingly high, but it doesn’t counter my point. What I’m talking about is that Romney will not get rid of the low “any investment is capital improvement” capital gains rate, nor will he even get rid of the “carried interest” loophole. This is what makes the income tax system so dysfunctional (even though it is payroll taxes that are the most unjust of the federal taxes).

In addition, Khimm talks to Roberton Williams, who is a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. She continues:

I doubt Romney planned that, but it works out well for him: screw the people who won’t vote for Romney anyway.

Also at WonkBlog, Dylan Matthews writes, Mitt Romney wants to cap tax deductions. Here are five ways to do it. The problem with this is that it gives Romney credit and help that he doesn’t deserve. He’s not serious about this proposal. As his campaign has been very clear about, this is just an “illustrative example.” In other words: don’t worry your pretty little heads about it, when the time comes we’ll make something work.

Just for the record, I know how they will make it work. They will give those 20% tax breaks. And the debt will increase. But it won’t matter, because Republicans will be in the White House. The deficit only matters if a Democrat is in power.

I’ll just come right out and say it: it is hard to talk about penises without a lot of unintentional puns. See what I mean? And frankly, I don’t like the whole subject. I don’t like biology; I find it disgusting. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it all the time.

This morning, I wrote the following poem:

Every time I defecate
I think of Charles Darwin
I wonder how an enzyme
Went on to create Carmen.

Clearly, I am a weakling. Human biology makes me run and hide.

The Incredible Shrinking Penis

Luckily, we have strong men to look out for the health of the species. Jessica Valenti tells the story:

Rush Limbaugh is worried about penises. Specifically, he’s concerned that feminists (I’m sorry, “feminazis”) have contributed to decreasing penis size. Responding to an Italian study that reports penises are 10 percent smaller than they were fifty years ago, last week Limbaugh pointed to feminism, feminazis, and “chickification” as the cause.

Ladies, the cat is out of the bag. Our cover of fighting for equal social, political, and economic opportunities for women has been blown. The phallus has always been the centerpiece — and the target — of all feminist thought. The upside is that we can finally be open about our true agenda: A small dick on every man. (‘Cause who likes a big one, amirite?!)

Study Problems

Apparently, Limbaugh gets his science from ChaCha.com, in a little feature they call Weirdest Scientific Discoveries, but which I’m calling, “Shit they just made up because they were on deadline and most weird scientific discoveries do not involve penises.” They link to no paper, but they do claim, “Male genitalia are roughly 10 percent smaller today than they were 50 years ago.” [Emphasis in original!]

It makes me think. What if there really is such a study? Was it longitudinal? (I kill myself!) Did they really measure penises the same 50 years ago as they do now? Aren’t men more likely to allow their penises to be measured now? And maybe men are just fatter now and it only appears that their penises have shrunk. So many questions! So much conjecture! Ain’t science grand?

Regardless, Jessica Valenti has a theory about the winky shrinky: it’s all the tofu you girls are forcing us to eat. Could be. I’m sure Rush is on the case.

Afterword

To make up for this article, Julia Migenes as Carmen:

I feel better. But I can’t speak for my penis.

Update (1 October 2012 11:39—Yes, I need to fix my posting dates!)

File this under “Why the world is fucked up!” I just checked Julia Migenes on Twitter and she has only 14 followers. Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that she has never tweeted. But her picture is there, so it must be her. She has a nice website though.

Rush Limbaugh by DonkeyHotey under CC BY 2.0.

Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog writes Is Frank Bruni Now the Worst Op-Ed Columnist at the New York Times? He starts by noting that the competition is fierce: David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tom Friedman. Frank Bruni has mostly been off my radar, but I do remember he’s annoyed me a few times recently.

Steve M’s problem is that Frank Bruni claims that what we really need to see in Wednesday’s debate is the two candidates talking about the need for sacrifice:

Steve M goes on the highlight the hypocrisy of this. As I’ve noted in the past, pundits like Bruni usually believe just what is best for themselves, so this comes as no surprise. Steve M also talks about Bruni’s false equivalence. Again: no surprise. Why would the New York Times make a columnist out of a restaurant critic unless he was also going to spout the nonsense of the elite? I recommend reading Steve M’s whole article.

I would just like to add a bit to the conversation. The poorer 90% of the country have not just sacrificed over the last 4 years. They’ve sacrificed over the last 35 years. These are the years during which productivity has gone way up while workers’ salaries have stagnated. Winner-Take-All Politics presents work by Richistan and Broadland that show that if productivity gains had been shared equally from 1979 through 2006, the bottom 90% would be making roughly $10,000 more per year while those in the top 1% would be making almost $700,000 less.

Note that this doesn’t assume that every person would get the same amount in extra money. It assumes that the people at the top would get their normal (for the post-WWII period) higher share of the rewards of productivity increases. So these numbers go to show just how distorted the economic system has been made through various governmental policies.

I bring this up, because I want people to understand that the suffering and sacrifice of the middle and lower classes have been going on for a long time. They aren’t the result of our current economic troubles, but rather our policies. And we need to do something about that.