The Funny Farm

By funnyfarmer - blogger incredulous that this was approved and allowed to be published on the front page of the newspaper right after the Giuliani scandal came out - almost as if they had to distract the public from the important news of the day!

Friday, November 30, 2007

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Trent Lott's biography that gets the most attention is not his continuing racist remarks, but his connections to the gay hooker world.

Since abruptly resigning his position as a US Senator five years before his term ends, Trent, a member of a sanctimonious group of holier-than-thou Republican'ts, has had to address assertions that he is gay or that he had purchased the services of a gay hooker while condemning gays in general and the gay lifestyle in particular. While he publicly proclaims to practice a form of christian religion, Trent's itinerary did occasionally coincide with known male sex workers during his time as a representative of american taxpayers.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Trent (R-MS) is gay, a closeted denier and persecutor of his fellow homosexuals, and that, if he continued to serve in the US Senate, his sexual preferences would be exposed, when the results of investigations in the matter become public.

In Senate appearances, Trent regularly condemns the 'deviant behavior' involved with same-sex relationships, and promotes legislation that would criminalize sexual activity between members of the same sex. Trent invokes these opinions as part of his case that he is a gawdly christian, and that he would literally bring hellfire and damnation on earth to the gawdless sodomites in america.

Trent was born and spent his childhood in Mississippi, and he talks more about his southern roots than he does about the possibility of being the latest Republican't Senator to be publicly outed as a hypocrite in his private life.

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country followed our lead, we wouldn't have all these problems over all these years, either." he told the crowd at Strom Thurmond's birthday party. He was subsequently selected as Minority Whip by the Republican'ts in 2006.

While considerable attention has focused on the ongoing racist remarks by Lott (R), polls have also shown rising hostility toward homophobes in politics. It is not clear whether that negative sentiment will affect someone who has consorted with a male prostitute but claims he does not engage in homosexual acts. He was quoted about gays in the Associated Press:

"It [homosexuality] is [a sin]....You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just like alcohol...or sex addiction...or kleptomaniacs."

In a push poll by Gozby, 69 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate for any office who is gay, compared with 89 percent who said that about an atheist candidate and 36 percent who said the same for someone who is an evangelical christian.

Lott has angrily disputed the initial stories suggesting that he has engaged in homosexual acts, and the Republican't Party has had numerous spokespeople speak out, vouching for the candidate's family values. Aware that questions about his sexuality and his abrupt departure from the senate remain issues, Lott has also denied a separate charge: that he acknowledged the Republican'ts have been obstructing legislation in the current Congress. This charge stemmed from a direct quote from Lott earlier this year.

"The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail ... and so far it's working for us." he is quoted as saying, according to Roll Call in April.

Over the past twenty years, Lott has hidden his sexual preferences, and been a steadfast adherent of the Republican'ts southern strategy for decades, where his party panders to white voters and suppresses all others. And recently rumors that his devastated property from hurricane Katrina was given preferential treatment and inflated compensation swirled once again. But his racist

An early rumor about Lott's sexuality came from bigheadDC, an internets site devoted to the Beltway. The bigheadDC post said "One of the politicos Big Head DC has learned [Lott's gay escort] he's alleged to have been involved with is the married Sen. Trent Lott, 66, who unexpectedly announced his retirement on Monday. Lott is well-known to have been against a plethora of gay rights issues throughout his terms in Congress. He was also good friends with Sen. Larry Craig throughout his time in Congress.." He attributed these details to background information he collected during his investigations into the matter.

After Lott's people denied the rumor, an intertubes political commenter, said Lott's "hypocrisy and persecution of his own kind was to be the issue, not so much his sexuality," and he suggested that the source of the gay rumor was a rival Republican't. The Republican'ts denied the charge.

Numerous online sites published on their Web sites satirical posts deriding the allegedly gay senator. One of them was titled "Whole Lott O'Love (Brief Refrain)"

Liberal bloggers have occasionally repeated the rumor, with many noting Trent's "background" with "wide stance" Larry Craig for years, and others saying that it wouldn't surprise them at all. Others repeatedly claim that Larry Flynt might be outing him in Hustler magazine any day now.

"The gays have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out," says one comment that was posted recently on a blog, by a Lott supporter who warned of an attempt to "Swift Boat" the senator. "What better way to start than at the highest level, through a Senator of the United States, one of their own!"

A BS News poll in August showed that a huge number of voters said they did not know Lott's sexuality, but among those who said they did, 5 percent thought he was gay, while only 16 percent cared about it at all.

The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib has an excellent column this morning on the impending depression threat of an economic downturn and the relevance (cough) of tax cuts to reignite the economy. (And I note the insidious way that Republican'ts use tax cuts as a universal panacea) He notes that Republicans have an important opportunity to push tax cuts as a spur to the slumping economy, whereas Democrats are still stuck with a tired tax-hike message and an obsessive desire to undo the Bush tax cuts. (And I note the way that Kudlow takes the Democratic position of enforcing the sunset of the pRetzelDunce's tax giveaways to the rich - which was the only way that they were allowed to be enacted - and turns it into an obsessive desire to undo the Bush tax cuts. And the loaded terms used to describe any long overdue tax revisions as tired tax-hike messages. But this one note symphony has rung hollow to my ears ever since the Ray-Gun experiment that tripled the national debt - after his handlers belatedly started raising taxes at the end of his second term - took place.)

Seib does not go into the incentive effects of lower marginal tax rates versus the one-shot demand-side effects of temporary tax cuts. (And Kudlow completely ignores the clusterCheney going on as the result of years of tax giveaways to the corporate welfare queens that renders any fantastical discussions about more tax giveaways to the rich moot)

Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers* (along with an increasing wave of concerned economic gurus) is now predicting a 2008 recession. But he's calling for temporary tax cuts for low and middle-class families. Unfortunately, history clearly shows this approach will not work. (Unfortunately, Kudlow does not show us why he believes that history clearly shows this approach will not work - which I, unfortunately, think that history clearly shows will work - nor does he explain why his belief is more realistic than anyone else's)

Many years ago, the late Milton Friedman wrote about the permanent-income hypothesis. The basic idea is that temporary additions to income (from tax cuts) won't be spent, they will be saved. On the other hand, permanent reductions to personal tax rates will be spent, will be saved, and will be invested. (said hypothesis going out the window when any additions to income are spent treading water financially and trying to ease the increasing pressure involved with stagnant wages and rising costs)

Moreover, Nobel Prize–winning economist Ed Prescott has successfully argued that economic behavior is highly responsive to changing tax rates. (Funny - I only see refernces to Kudlow claiming that this is what Prescott is successfully arguing) So there's a big difference between the Republican approach and the Democratic approach. (So there's a big hole in Kudlow's argument right here)

Democrats also will try and make the case that taxes should be cut for the so-called middle class, and raised on upper-income earners. (As do many who do not agree with the regressive nature of the current junta's tax giveaways to the rich) This is futile. (I'm not sure that I agree with this statement. It's too bad Kudlow doesn't feel obligated to explain the futility of this strategy) It's also bad politics for rich Republican'ts. Taxing successful earners is a tax on capital and investment (as opposed to taxing less successful earners more on the lesser income they have to subsist on), which has recently become scarce during the american economic meltdown caused by the Republican't tax giveaways to the rich housing crisis.

Republicans should take care to give the lesser mortals a bit of largesse propose lower tax rates on middle-income earners, as well as more tax giveaways to the rich successful investors. The real cheese supply-side "bang for the buck" comes at the top-end (and the rich Republican'ts), but across-the-board rate reductions (in times of prosperity) do have positive economic and political benefits. Collapsing the middle-income brackets — 15 percent, 25 percent, and 28 percent — would make a lot of sense. (Perhaps if Kudlow had left us a clue as to where they would be collapsing to, his unfounded allegations about the unsubstantiated effect of his undefined increases in the tax giveaways to the rich could be considered in an analytical manner)

GOP presidential hopeful Fred Thompson's embrace of the House Republican Study Committee's plan for a two-rate tax choice of 10 percent and 25 percent would really fit the bill (as far as the elite are concerned). For joint filers, that would be a 10 percent tax rate up to $100,000 and 25 percent above that. Not only is that considerable reductions to the unsustainable tax giveaways scheduled to expire soon good tax reform and simplification, it would really help middle-income tax payers (and really really help upper-income tax payers) and it would reduce their combined Social Security and income-tax burden (while further starving the government of revenue and gutting Social Security. Ladies and gentlemen , I give you the Republican't twofer!).

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back [part of their] signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

[snip]

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

[snip]

But Fox feels like he's already given enough. He'll never be able to pursue his dream of being a police officer because of his wounds and he can't believe he's being asked to return part of his $10,000 signing bonus.

KDKA contacted Congressman Jason Altmire on his behalf. He says he has proposed a bill that would guarantee soldiers receive full benefit of bonuses.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) excerpted from online article - full online text available at the linked web site