Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, August 2, 2012

How Dare The Democrats!

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Doug Mataconis and the right wingers are really upset that Harry Reid and the Democrats are using Karl Rove's play book.


As if doubling down on his unsupported allegations against Mitt Romney weren't bad enough, Harry Reid has taken to repeating those allegations on the floor of the United States Senate:


I don't like this kind of politics but the reality is this has been the MO for the Republican Party since Karl Rove came on the scene.  The only thing that is different  is Harry Reid and the Democrats have discovered  that you can't bring  a knife to a gun fight.

Romney could end this of course by releasing his tax returns but he really can't do that because they are toxic.  I think it's all about the 2009 returns - the year that UBS gave the US 4,000 names and the US offered an amnesty on foreign tax shelters.  Romney knew that not releasing his 2009 taxes would hurt his campaign  but a perk walk would have been worse.


4 comments:

  1. I can't help but think that the only way Reid could have done it better is prefacing the no-taxes thing with "some people say..." instead of a Bain Capital investor.
    The lesson would have been lost to FOX in any case...

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  2. Obama eschewed the slime and negative in the primary and general in 2008 and won. I do not believe for one minute that we gain anything by getting down into the gutter with the opponent, and when "my guy" does that he is no longer my guy. I turn my back on him.
    Fighting evil by becoming evil is not winning. It is merely assuring that everyone loses. Justify it all you want, but when you adopt "win at all costs" you have abandonded any valid reason for winning.

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  3. Many people don't believe Harry Reid but I don't think Harry Reid is the kind of person who plays dirty politics. Whoever told Harry about Romney paying no income tax must be somebody Harry trusts. And beside there is a good chance that Romney didn't pay any Federal Income Tax for ten years. There are a lot of millionaires that don't pay Federal Income Tax. Most of Romney's wealth comes from Capital Gains. And you only pay taxes on Capital Gains when you cash out your winners.

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  4. Hearing both theories of the value of this, I say keep it up, Harry. So much for the right wing calling Democrats weak and spineless. And I am so fatigued with talk show guests blaming President Obama for the negativity in Washington when we all know that it is the Republican House and Senate.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_print.html
    P.S. Joe Walsh yelling "You Lie" to the president during the state of the union speech is much worse than Harry Reid's remarks.

    ReplyDelete