Patterico's Pontifications

1/22/2021

Famous Big Government Socialist Wears Mittens That Can’t Be Obtained Any More Due to Big Government Policies

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:45 am



Screen Shot 2021-01-22 at 7.38.43 AM

Above: Socialist Senator Bernard Sanders enjoys the fruits of the free market

You have no doubt seen the memes with Bernie and his mittens showing up everywhere like Waldo.

Slate managed to interview the lady who made the mittens. You can’t get them any more.

So I put it out there that I made the mittens, they were a gift, and they’re not knitted, they’re sewn from repurposed and up-cycled sweaters. At that time, I had 30 or 40 mittens for sale and being a little naïve about Twitter, I put my Gmail account on that, which someone picked up yesterday and retweeted it. People have been contacting me thinking that they can get mittens, and actually they can’t. I don’t have any more, and I don’t have much of a mitten business anymore because it really wasn’t worth it. Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government. We get taxed to the nth degree, and it wasn’t really worth it pursuing that as a business, even as a side hustle. I mostly just make them as gifts.

A socialist enjoying the fruits of capitalism is a perfect metaphor for woke lefties logging onto capitalist Twitter on their capitalist Apple devices to complain about capitalism and “inequality.”

44 Responses to “Famous Big Government Socialist Wears Mittens That Can’t Be Obtained Any More Due to Big Government Policies”

  1. Good one. I forgot about the Beachgate controversy until now. Thank goodness for the Dem primary to take the course it did in South Carolina. It could’ve been a lot worse had Biden not prevailed there in and other primaries afterwards.

    HCI (92ea66)

  2. She needs to change tax accountants, I think.

    nk (1d9030)

  3. This feels like a stretch of a take.

    Bernie was given these as a gift. She briefly tried to monetize them and realized they weren’t profitable enough to be worth it. She still gives them as gifts.

    nate_w (1f1d55)

  4. A more fair take would be “Someone who once gave Bernie a gift tried briefly selling those gifts but realized it wasn’t worth it. She still gives them as gifts.”

    This is a success of capitalism. The free market speaks. Nowhere is it presented the ways in which taxes somehow affect her business more than others.

    nate_w (1f1d55)

  5. Nah, strike that in my comment #2. It’s not necessarily her accountant’s fault.

    I operated under a Schedule C — Profit or Loss From Business (Sole Proprietorship) for over three decades. I understood why I sent a check to the IRS in April, instead of getting one like most other people. I wonder if she does.

    nk (1d9030)

  6. Nate,

    1. she’s the one the blamed the feds for her hardship. No idea why.
    2. A real market success will be someone finding a way to jump on this to build a product line.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  7. Also I like mittens. they keep your fingers warm.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  8. He should be seated next to Stalin.

    Rip Murdock (80e6b4)

  9. I’m surprised that a guy with several houses and worth millions can’t afford better winter clothes.

    Hoi Polloi (139bf6)

  10. @3. Yep.

    _____

    The more obvious observation- along w/election day being moved to a weekend, this pomp and circumstance should occur in August, not January- when the Congresscritters can sit, sweat and be a picnic feast for swamp mosquitoes.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  11. DSCA, your observation feels like a non-sequitor although I agree with moving Election Day to the weekend.

    nate (1f1d55)

  12. Our esteemed host wrote:

    A socialist enjoying the fruits of capitalism is a perfect metaphor for woke lefties logging onto capitalist Twitter on their capitalist Apple devices to complain about capitalism and “inequality.”

    What, you expect the woke to actually be fully awake to the dismal science of economics?

    If liberals actually understood economics, they wouldn’t be liberals anymore.

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  13. @10. Let’em sweat in August; it’s no accident the parties always vacate that city in that particular month.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  14. ^11.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  15. Thank God it wasn’t Romney wearing them.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  16. Kevin M: What, Mittens mittens?

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  17. Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government. We get taxed to the nth degree, and it wasn’t really worth it pursuing that as a business, even as a side hustle.

    The fact that she says this doesn’t make it so.

    What taxes “to the nth degree” do “independent crafters” pay to the federal government beyond the income and payroll taxes that we all pay?

    What she says just doesn’t make sense.

    Dave (1bb933)

  18. He should be seated next to Stalin.

    Dude, he’s to the far left of Stalin.

    It’s perfect!

    Dave (1bb933)

  19. What she says just doesn’t make sense.
    Dave (1bb933) — 1/22/2021 @ 3:51 pm

    She must be a plant. A bought-and-paid-for stooge of Putin and the Trump2024 campaign.

    Hoi Polloi (139bf6)

  20. beyond the income and payroll taxes that we all pay?

    They pay the payroll taxes that we don’t all pay. Her problem is that she hasn’t learned about what you can deduct, with varying degrees of legality.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  21. Dude, he’s to the far left of Stalin.

    Not from Stalin’s POV — he’s to the right of Churchill. Off-topic: Biden removed the evil colonialist Churchill’s bust again.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  22. Her problem is that she hasn’t learned about what you can deduct, with varying degrees of legality.

    She’s not a huge multinational corporation that owns just the right politicians, that’s her problem.

    Hoi Polloi (139bf6)

  23. Stalin, the son of a drunken shoemaker and a cleaning woman who was sent to Siberia seven times by the Czar; Churchill and Roosevelt, two children of hereditary privilege born with silver spoons in their mouths; and Bernie a classic petit bourgeois running dog of a Western capitalist system mouthing Socialist platitudes. Yes, I imagine Bernie would be the one Stalin would want the farthest away from him.

    nk (1d9030)

  24. Hard to pass the baton to AOC with those mittens.

    asset (a1e799)

  25. Off-topic: Biden removed the evil colonialist Churchill’s bust again.

    Meh. Churchill is a fascinating and often inspiring historical figure, but he’s not entitled to a place in the Oval Office in perpetuity.

    Replacing Andrew Jackson’s portrait with Ben Franklin is a great call though.

    Dave (1bb933)

  26. I agree it’s not clear why an English Prime Minister should have a permanent niche made for himself. If you want the bust of somebody who fought Nazis, FDR would do just fine.

    This should probably go in the other thread but as long as I’m here, note the new reports that shortly before the Jan. 6 Riot/insurrection, Trump was pushing the acting AG Rosen to announce investigations into vote fraud to stall the electoral count. Rosen refused so Trump went to a stooge in the DOJ, Clark, to work on it and planned to make Clark the AG. It might have happened except for the leak of the phone call Trump made to the Georgian SoS:

    Rather than backing off, Clark went back to Trump. He met with Trump over the weekend, then came back to tell Rosen what they had decided. Trump and Clark concocted a plan in which Trump would replace Rosen with Clark. Clark would then use the DOJ in an effort to prevent Congress from counting the Electoral College results. Clark not only explained this plan to Rosen, but offered to allow Rosen to stay on as his deputy.

    Rosen refused to go along and demanded a meeting with Trump. But what stopped Trump and Clark’s plan from moving forward was not some momentary lapse into reason or decency on Trump’s part. Instead, what happened was that, just as Rosen was preparing to meet with Trump, news broke that Raffensperger had recorded his conversation with Trump. Hearing Trump’s direct effort to force the Georgia secretary of state into “finding” votes, along with Trump’s threats over what would happen if Raffensperger failed to go along, apparently stiffened enough spines among the second tier officials at the DOJ that a whole group threatened to resign if Rosen was removed. The “Clark Plan” the group decided would “seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law.”

    That same evening, Rosen, Donoghue and Clark met at the White House with Trump, White House attorney Pat Cipollone, and other lawyers. Cippollone made it clear to Trump that pulling the trigger on the Clark Plan would not just generate chaos at the Justice Department, but result in a strong pushback from Congress, including investigations.

    After nearly three hours of argument, Trump reluctantly backed away from firing Rosen and using the DOJ to smash open the election.

    The story is in the New York Times, but the quote above is from

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/22/2011305/-Trump-plotted-to-toss-the-acting-attorney-general-insert-a-stooge-and-block-the-electoral-count

    So, it took the brave acts of various Republican officials to stop Trump and those Republicans are going to be mostly shunned and ousted by the rest of the party.

    Victor (4959fb)

  27. Having Churchill’s bust (or FDR’s) in your workplace all day would be grounds for a complaint to the shop steward at the very least, and it might even break new legal ground in “hostile work environment” law and maybe even OSHA.

    nk (1d9030)

  28. nk – why? Can you point to me any legal opinion that would indicate such a thing?

    Victor (4959fb)

  29. I could see Churchill, particularly 2nd reign (1951-55?) Churchill who tried to claw away at Atlee’s Labour nationalization schemes. Reagan definitely on account of the PATCO firings.

    urbanleftbehind (3678bd)

  30. RIP Larry King, 87

    Pearly Gates… Hello!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  31. No, Victor, I cannot, but there’s always a case of first impression. Having to look at an ugly thing, every work day the whole work day, is gratuitous psychological torture, which both harms the health of the worker and reduces his efficiency. The only defense would be that it’s necessary to the nature of the work and no reasonable accommodation is possible.

    nk (1d9030)

  32. You can easily tell the liberal plants playing “conservative regular folks” by their over-the-top visceral reaction to any declaration that’s reasonable, human, or masculine. Who would be motivated, upon hearing an aside mildly critical of Democrat tax policy, and thus Squishbrain Magoo and the Democrat cru, to immediately start rationalizing away a person’s lived experience with all-encompassing moral proclamations about the sanctity of the free market and thinly-veiled demands for doxxable info? These people, that’s who.

    “A more fair take would be “Someone who once gave Bernie a gift tried briefly selling those gifts but realized it wasn’t worth it. She still gives them as gifts.””

    THE $CURRENT_STATE OF THE MARKET IS FAIR BY DEFINITION. ANY SUGGESTION THAT IT SHOULD BE OTHERWISE IS ABSOLUTELY HARAM. NEITHER GOVERNMENT NOR THE MARKET IS EVER IN THE WRONG.

    “This is a success of capitalism. The free market speaks.”

    THE MARKET MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS, AS DOES TAX POLICY. BLESSED BE THE STATE OF THE MARKET.

    Nowhere is it presented the ways in which taxes somehow affect her business more than others.

    YOU DID NOT ISSUE FOOTNOTES TO SUPPORT YOUR ANECDOTE, CITIZEN. CONSIDER YOUR CLAIMS…DEBUNKED!

    “She needs to change tax accountants

    SHE ALSO SHOULD CHANGE BROKERS, ACCOUNTANTS, AND PR TEAMS, AFTER A FULL INVESTIGATION OF HER PHONE, INTERNET, AND CREDIT HISTORY.

    I swear, these responses alone, let alone the fact that they pass without comment by people who very much should know better, are enough to justify any future civil war/Reign of Terror 110%.

    Shillspotter 5001 (fc3860)

  33. So by highlighting the responses that are reality based and conservative focused, and calling them liberal, you show your typical ignorance of what the terms mean.

    You’re an uneducated troll, or a troll, same thing.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0)

  34. Wow. My opinion on this topic justifies future civil war. Cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool. Smart and reasonable take.

    So glad REAL conservatives are here to tell me what’s what.

    nate_w (1f1d55)

  35. Five of Biden’s eight great-grandparents were of pure Irish descent.

    That alone would make the sculpture of an English Tory a pretty unlikely choice of office decor.

    Dave (1bb933)

  36. their leader is a stable genius mr nate

    Dave (1bb933)

  37. 4. nate_w (1f1d55) — 1/22/2021 @ 8:50 am

    Nowhere is it presented the ways in which taxes somehow affect her business more than others.

    They were being made by many people in different states.

    Se=he says:

    Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government.

    Complying with the tax and maybe minimum wage laws was too complicated. She didn’t want to send out 1099 forms, and the people who made them for her didn’t want to get them. And have to pay 15.3% in self-employment taxes and maybe lose eligibility for government benefits, and even if not make forms much more difficult to fill out.

    She s probably not the only person affected. Who said this was the only potential micro-business affected?

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  38. And there are sales tax laws. Although I think they have exceptions for small scale.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  39. Wow. My opinion on this topic justifies future civil war. Cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool.

    It’s amusing if you don’t think too hard on it. He’s so offended by the commenters here he hopes it leads to a civil war and our deaths. but he also puts so much energy into commenting here, spending money on a VPN and all that time writing those angry comments.

    But it’s also sad someone’s soul is that corroded from drinking his own poison.

    This is what the Russian disinfo, politicians like Trump and his copycats, are doing to people. Taking their sanity, dignity, happiness, and time. Trump doesn’t care what this really means, but I can’t help but care a bit.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  40. and state tax laws.

    The tax isn’t so great but the hassle is.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  41. Thanks, Sammy, good points.

    nate (1f1d55)

  42. Were I President of the United States, there would be exactly one Presidential portrait in the Oval Office: that of Andrew Jackson, the only President who ever paid off the national debt. It would be my reminder to cut spending!

    The Dana in Kentucky (facd7c)

  43. I would put up my favorite Modigliani print (NSFW) to remind me of what’s really important in life.

    nk (1d9030)

  44. the matriarchy is a cruel mistress mr nk

    Dave (1bb933)


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