Dope of the week

Last week this feature debuted and was extremely popular in the e-mails. There were a number of suggestions for this week's edition and, as we read over excerpts, we saw the points people were making; however, we also didn't feel anything rose to the level of "Dope of the week." Think of it as the Golden Raspberries for the faux left.



Then Ginger e-mailed late Saturday to note the faux left version of Bo Derek, The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel. Ginger: "This is what the idiot Vanden Heuvel just posted at her blog. It's from 'No Taxes for War':"



The social democrat in me has always been uncomfortable with tax resistance, despite my admiration for the War Resisters League. As progressives, we want to enlarge the public sphere, and elevate the primacy of politics, engaged in collectively, as the means for solving social problems. Taxes are obviously a crucial element of meeting our common goals. In that respect, opting out of the collective decision making of the polity about how to spend the nation's money is problematic.



If you don't immediately laugh, you may not be aware, Ginger is, that vanden Heuvel's family turned themselves into money grubbers in their efforts to avoid paying taxes on the estate of her late grandfather. That is reality and Ginger noted it's reality that's vanished from Crapapedia. Ginger can't figure out why.



It disappeared because a coffee fetcher fetches coffee. The facts of Katrina vanden Heuvel's family's efforts to avoid paying estate taxes and the court battle that ensued were deleted by a Nation intern who loves, loves her some Katrina. If you're really interested, Ginger, e-mail us and we'll provide you with ____'s personal webpage which has everyone at The Nation who knows about it laughing. (What, you thought common sense was required to be an intern for The Nation?) It took two phone calls to C.I.'s friends at The Nation to determine who ___ was and why she was going around scrubbing Crapapedia entries on her boss. She's a suck-up. She's a suck-up and a mouse. They told C.I. that ___ did the deletion on 'work hours' and after "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you must have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis," and "Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis." went up. (___ removed the information on the court cases eight days after that feature posted.) Supposedly Katrina vanden Heuvel gave orders to all coffee fetchers to scrub her clean online.



Here's what the little vegan ___ removed:



Vanden Heuvel has been criticized for her commentary against an effort in the U.S. Senate to abolish the Federal Estate Tax. Opponents point to her own family background as contradiction of her pro-tax position on the matter. In his book Do As I Say (Not As I Do), Peter Schweizer notes that her grandfather was Jules Stein, founder of the mega-entertainment conglomerate MCA. Schweizer alleges that after Stein's passing Vanden Heuvel inherited numerous trust funds, mostly sheltered from the Federal Estate Tax, which her grandfather had established with the help of legendary tax attorney John Wright. Schweizer writes of one investment of $9 million that was ruled not to be tax exempt. When the IRS ruled the investment subject to a $2 million tax, Stein's family challenged the IRS and fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost.



So Katrina vanden Heuvel decided to write Saturday about tax resistance and wants to explain that her inner "social democrat" is troubled by the concept of tax resistance. Greed, apparently, is another issue.



We may be outing the intern next edition. We will be revisiting The Nation next week regardless.