Brian Loves This!

To put it more bluntly: The president and the Democrats should not be piling on Romney because he’s rich. They should be piling on the tax code because it is so insane. This issue is populist and good economics. With a full-scale Bowles-Simpson attack on deductions, reform could keep taxation simple and low and easier to understand. And that restrains lobbyists, who suddenly have far less to lobby for; and it restrains taxation. If you have three simple rates - say, 10, 20, 30 - then any increase in them is very, very visible. You want a government that can be monitored and controlled by the people? Simplify the tax code!

—I don’t know what the best way to simplify the tax code is, but I’m on board with the general sense of this from Sully.

Nowadays, I don’t have a plan, an exit strategy, or a career arc in mind. So it’s like: keep working on things. Don’t sit and play PlayStation and wait for the phone to ring. Go out and see music, see art, participate. Then you just cross your fingers and hope it will work out OK.

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Craig Finn Talks New Solo Album, New Hold Steady Material | News | Pitchfork

That pretty much exactly describes my life, to a t, right there. 

(via rickwebb)

Hence, quitting my job, spending a month and a half in Europe, moving to a new city without a job. Craig Finn gets me. I just need to keep working on that “don’t sit and play Playstation” part…

(via rickwebb)

realkingfish:

From the moment the Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks rumors started to swirl I was of one mind: you give up whatever you must to get a player of his magnitude. Argue it any which way you want: that stars win in the NBA, that if you get the best player in a deal you’re getting the better end of it or…

They miss, it seems to me, two vital things. The first is the simple scale of what has been accomplished on issues liberals say they care about. A depression was averted. The bail-out of the auto industry was—amazingly—successful. Even the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by a recovering banking sector. The Iraq War—the issue that made Obama the nominee—has been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. Defense is being cut steadily, even as Obama has moved his own party away from a Pelosi-style reflexive defense of all federal entitlements. Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels. Under Obama, a crucial state, New York, made marriage equality for gays an irreversible fact of American life. Gays now openly serve in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act is dying in the courts, undefended by the Obama Justice Department. Vast government money has been poured into noncarbon energy investments, via the stimulus. Fuel-emission standards have been drastically increased. Torture was ended. Two moderately liberal women replaced men on the Supreme Court. Oh, yes, and the liberal holy grail that eluded Johnson and Carter and Clinton, nearly universal health care, has been set into law. Politifact recently noted that of 508 specific promises, a third had been fulfilled and only two have not had some action taken on them. To have done all this while simultaneously battling an economic hurricane makes Obama about as honest a follow-through artist as anyone can expect from a politician.

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Andrew Sullivan: How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics - The Daily Beast (via rickwebb)

This is must-read business right here.

(via rickwebb)

Having just burned through (and quite enjoyed) PJ20 and I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, let’s just say I’m more than a little excited for this.