Quote of the Day

“The battle for the American mind right now is between talk show hosts and comedians,” said Alex Foxworthy, a 26-year-old doctoral student from Richmond, Va. “I choose the comedians.”

From the NYTimes coverage of the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear."

Amen.

"Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames?"

With all of the BS political ads running these days, it's a helpful reminder to realize that a bygone era of civility and gentlemanly rules never existed. Dirty politics in the U.S. is not new. In fact, it's a very American pastime. The video speaks for itself. True story. Enjoy.

I miss choir...

Here is PS22, a really great public school children's choir from Staten Island, singing Coldplay's "Viva La Vida."  Enjoy.

This is an ad for Soy Sauce?!?

This is what happens to a society when it's culture and economy moves from an agrarian rural society circa 1820 to a modern industrial economy circa 1950s in the span of 10-15 years (during World War II and shortly thereafter).  Just so we're all clear folks, we're talking about our friend Japan.

Click here to enjoy the wonder of it all. Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish

1,000 Pageviews!

Hi Everybody,

I forgot to mention when we hit our one year anniversary on July 24th 2010, so I figured I would do some sort of announcement when we hit one-thousand pageviews.  Well that moment has arrived and I wanted to thank you all for checking out and reading this blog from time to time.  I want to thank my blogging colleague Mike Flynn, 1) for being my friend, but 2) for starting his blog at the same time and being a constant source of input as well as inspiration.  If you haven't checked out his work at Pale Thunder, you're all missing out on some great informal movie reviews and political commentary.

I also want to thank my three readers who have been with me since the beginning; Adam, Colum, and Gram. Adam, thank you for your sarcastic input and conservative wit. You keep me on my toes!  Colum, it's the happiest part of my blogging day when I see that I have one person reading my blog in England and I know that that person is you!  And Gram, thanks for your constant love and support, I hope that my crossing the line here has not upset you on too many occasions!

But overall, thanks to everyone who's checked Ernie Crossing the Line out.  Please feel free to write me and write more comments in this space.  I look forward to having more reader input and will try to do better at putting up more media and commentary on comedy and music.  Also, don't forget to check out blogs of friends which can be found on the right of the page.  Their topics range from the subtleties of enjoying Waffle House, to movie reviews, to governance issues in contemporary Africa.  There's something for absolutely everyone.

Again, thank you for reading and we hope to keep you entertained for another 1,000 pageviews!

Sincerely,

Dave (Ernie)

A Class Act

President Obama making his contribution to (famed sex columnist) Dan Savage's noble It Gets Better project, to help bullied gay youth, on Youtube.

Although he's cautiously stepping towards a real gay rights agenda on Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to the consternation of some on the left, I think his ninja moves behind the scenes will provide for a more lasting change as I stated here (rather obscenely) in a previous post. (Meaning Grandmas should not read the aforementioned post!)

Nerd in Chief

Peter Baker's must read interview with President Obama.  This interview was used for his NY Times Magazine piece, "Education of a President"

On what he would tell the Barack Obama of December 2008:

"Now in retrospect, I could have told Barack Obama in December of 2009 that if you already have a third of the [stimulus] package as tax cuts, then the Republicans, who traditionally are more comfortable with tax cuts, may just pocket that and attack the other components of the program. And it might have been better for us not to include tax cuts in the original package, let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts, and then say, O.K., you know, we’ll compromise and give you your tax cuts, even though we had already proposed them.

And if you recall, when we initially unveiled what the Recovery Act would look like — in fact, that a third of it was tax cuts — Mitch McConnell actually was, as he phrased it, pleasantly surprised that sort of traditional Republican idea had been included. But very quickly that pleasant surprise turned into attacks on the infrastructure or the aid to the states or what have you.

I would have told Barack Obama back in 2009 that just be warned, structuring the tax cut the way we did, where people basically got a small bump in their paycheck every two weeks, was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut. And in fact what ended up happening was six months into it or nine months into it, people had thought we had raised their taxes instead of cutting their taxes."

On whether he has a communication problem or a policy problem:

I think that, when I reflect back on the last two years, I do think that given how much stuff was coming at us, we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration — and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top — that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular.

And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics, and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion. And so there are probably areas where we could have been more effective than we’ve been.

It's National Coming Out Day! (and my birthday)

Happy National Coming Out Day Everyone!

I'm sure it's scary to come out to your friends and family, but I'm sure that a national holiday makes it that much easier.

Yes, it was just a mere 27 years ago on October 11, 1983 that Ernie was born, in the small hamlet of Springfield, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of basketball.  But aside from National Coming Out Day being perfectly timed with the date of my birth, October 11th is also remembered for other famous events which occurred upon this most blessed day.

1776 - Benedict Arnold (still on team USA) fights valiantly on Valcour Island
1884 - Eleanor Roosevelt was born
1975 - Saturday Night Live debuts
1975 - Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham are married (oh yeah...) 
2002 - President Jimmy Carter is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
2003 - Pedro Martinez and Don Zimmer fight in ALCS

To read more about this day in history and other days in history. Check out this link at http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/

UPDATE: I totally forgot to mention that the blog The Daily Dish, which inspired me to start this blog, is celebrating its tenth birthday today!  If you haven't checked out Andrew Sullivan's must read blog, then you're missing out on interesting, creative, funny and smart posts on a wide variety of subjects.

If there are no atheists in foxholes...

Then there are no libertarians or conservative Republicans during house fires.  Imagine if you had the option to opt-out of protection from the fire department and could save roughly $75 per year in taxes.  Sounds like a pretty fair deal to me. Would you take that risk?

Well, a family in rural Tennessee found out when they repeatedly refused to pay the option for fire protection from the closest municipality in South Fulton, Tenn.



Well, guess what? That $75 of freedom per year pretty much bit them in the butt. Now I would have probably put out their fire and had them pay every fee they owed plus a massive late fee, but that's not how insurance works, does it?

I'm sure my fellow conservatives will agree, they didn't pay for the service then they shouldn't get it.  That family got to be $75 more free than any of their neighbors from South Fulton, who didn't have a choice whether or not they were going to pay for the fire department, they just had to.

Was it worth it? I don't think so...

Hat tip to Ezra Klein for his post regarding the incident and how it relates to the GOP's bluff about repealing the healthcare mandate.

NEWSFLASH: The Bailout Worked

A new release by the Treasury Department shows that TARP - commonly known as "the bailout" - will not cost taxpayers as much as originally anticipated.  Estimates show that the program, signed into law by President Bush in late 2008 and re-authorized by President Obama in 2009, will cost approximately $50 billion but has the potential to turn a profit for taxpayers.

Although President Obama should have leveraged the use of TARP more over Wall Street banks and hedge funds for stronger financial regulation reform, the program did its job in stabilizing the financial sector at a relatively small cost. (It's important to remember that estimates of the cost of the crisis range from $1.3-1.6 trillion.)

Interesting fact: Although roughly $700 billion was authorized, the program only disbursed roughly $380 billion.

The bailout is a perfect example of why it's sometimes OK to have BIG GOVERNMENT.  I would have liked to stem the financial crisis but unfortunately I don't have $700 billion at my disposal.  The big banks were the ones who didn't have any money anymore, so they couldn't get together and come with a private solution.  Once at the turn of the century, the U.S. went into a recession and J.P. Morgan, not the bank, but the man, bailed out the U.S. government - those were the days!

There are some things that big government shouldn't do. Big government shouldn't set local school curriculum, or set local zoning laws, tell you you can't eat certain foods or smoke, or tell a girl what to do with her body if she gets raped or knocked up by her 15 year old boyfriend.  That stuff is too small for big government to do and it's really not its job.

Anyway, this is a case of big government working.  We don't want big government all the time but we want big government to do big things like this, fighting wars, making sure every state is treating U.S. citizens equally and protecting our food, air and water to make sure its clean.  All of this big stuff we can't do by ourselves and we need big government to do. And when we agree that there are certain big things that we need to do like build more federal highways, reform our outdated healthcare system, update our energy grid, or send our troops to war, it's fair that big government asks us to pay for those things, because those things cost a lot of money.

The White House Loses Rahm-bo

The White House is a little less bad-ass today as Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel has left his post to pursue a mayoral campaign in Chicago.  He is a tough-as-nails politician who knew when to "f*ck the left" and compromise and get shit done. Trust me, if it weren't for Rahm Emanuel we would not have ANY version of healthcare reform that we have today.  He also knew how crazy and ideological our nation's capital of Washington, DC had become, nicknaming it, correctly in my opinion, "F*cknutsville."  Also, most importantly, he was a NU WILDCAT! 

Let's take a look at Rahm's amazing resume.

- Had to have part of his middle finger amputated after severely cutting it in an Arby's meat slicer and choosing to go swimming in Lake Michigan over going to the hospital - Bad-ass
- Intensely studied ballet at the Evanston School of Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet - being secure in one's masculinity - Bad-ass
- Going to a formerly all-women's college Sarah Lawrence so he could study ballet - Bad-ass
- Getting his Masters degree in Communication from Northwestern University - Awesome and Bad-ass
- Joining the Israeli Defense Force in the first Gulf War in 1991 - BAD-ASS
- Running the Democratic congressional campaigns in 2006 and 2008 helping them comeback to power on a strategy of a bigger tent (i.e. pro-life and pro-gun Dems)- Just SMART



Rahm, you will be missed. Is the Ragin' Cajun available?