August 2012
“Did the water come from the sky, or the rivers, or the ocean?”
– Mitt Romney
In New Orleans.
(via con-tem-plate)
Color me bafflingly stupid as well. I don’t get why this is such an inexplicable question.
Sure, if I were Romney I would have asked it somewhere more private. But if you’re surveying coastal flooding following a hurricane it...
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Imaginary Medicare "Cuts"
sds quotes James Taranto:
People on both ideological sides may be vexed by Ryan’s defense of Medicare. But those on the right should take comfort that it shows the limits of the entitlement state. In the political world the left dreams of, ObamaCare would have raised taxes on everyone with the assent of conservative deficit hawks. Instead, the Republican Party re-embraced small-government...
Why (and How) Romney is Playing the Race Card →
Why ignore fact-checkers? First, internal GOP polling and focus groups offer convincing evidence that the welfare ad is hurting Obama. Second, the welfare issue, generally speaking, triggers anger in white blue-collar voters that is easily directed toward Democrats. This information comes from senior GOP strategists who have worked both for President Bush and Romney. They spoke on condition of...
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Up Is Down, Black Is White. . .
barticles:
… and criticizing the substance of President’s policy proposals is considered racist, but actually discriminating among groups of people based on race is considered progressive and high-minded:
In the selection of each state’s at-large delegation, priority of consideration shall be given to African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and...
DOJ closes CIA interrogation probes without... →
The Department of Justice statement concludes:
Our inquiry was limited to a determination of whether prosecutable offenses were committed and was not intended to, and does not resolve, broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct.
I had hoped to see some prosecutions for some of the reported conduct. I understand the decision not to proceed if there is insufficient...
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Romney and the Economy
Romney has based his pitch for votes on the claim that he’s the guy to get the economy back where we want it. Even if we feel Obama’s economic policy leaves something to be desired, we remember that the economic crash occured on Bush’s watch. The Obama administration has put a lot of protections in place to prevent another crash. Romney has promised to remove all of them.
Could...
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Romney and Foreign Policy
The Republican National Convention had foreign policy night last night. Its headliners included John McCain and Condoleezza Rice. Foreign policy is an awkward topic for the Republicans this cycle—because the Obama administration has done pretty well on that front. Most of the world is as happy with us as it’s ever going to be with a global superpower, we’ve generally avoided high...
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“With a solid delivery of a well-crafted address, Ryan was able to touch...”
– Politico’s Jonathan Martin has inadvertently made a show-stopping entry in this year’s Worst Metaphor Contest.
Republicans had a good night.
jgreendc:
zainyk:
Take solace in the fact that 4 years ago, after Palin spoke, it also looked like they had a good night.
Where as with Palin the eventual demise came about as a result of her character with Ryan it will come as a result of an actual debate about his ideas and their consequences.
Palin didn’t really implode until well after the election. That campaign was never really in...
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Paging Rick Santorum
Hey Rick. You don’t know me—but I think you should see a doctor immediatly.
I’ve been looking at pictures of your Romney-endorsement speech and you look like you’ve got some acute abdominal pain. Now, I’m not a medical doctor—but it really looks like your appendix is about to rupture. You really need to have that looked at.
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Lies about "gutting" welfare reform
A travesty in two acts
Act I: What happened
In 1996 Bill Clinton signed the generally bipartisan welfare reform act. The bipartisan 1996 Welfare Reform Act tightened eligibility for welfare benefits and added a welfare-to-work requirement. In the 2008 campaign Obama listed this act as something he had initially opposed but had changed his mind on after the results were better than he’d...
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On Poverty and Why It Is Still a Problem
Bart Hinkle has suggested that the huge amount we spend each year on anti-poverty programs is, at least in large part, wasted. Afterall, it’s a lot of money, and the poor are still with us. And it’s not getting cheaper.1
Washington runs 126 separate anti-poverty programs that collectively spend nearly $1 trillion a year. I got five bucks2 says we could get the same bang for the...
How to think about inequality
barticles:
“According to CBO, the top 1% of earners now pay 40% of all federal taxes, compared to less than 20% in the 1970s. Today, according to research by the OECD, income taxes in America are the most progressive among the rich nations of the world; as the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore observed in February, the ‘richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country’s...
thecallus:
My post-Revolution career plan is apparatchik. It ain’t gonna stay revolutionized, comrades. I’m to idealism what air and water are to iron. Entropy and corrosion are the hallmarks of the TREU boor-schwa.
I wasn’t actually planning on surviving the revolution. Admittedly, it’s not a great plan.
But here’s the thing. Violent revolutions can be nasty business. If...
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On Civil Liberties
May I rock the boat a bit?
Civil liberties are important. There’s a lot to say for resisting their erosion at every opportunity—even if it means a messy fight to preserve some sort of privacy we didn’t even know we cared about. I understand this.
I also understand that we tend to prioritize the issues that affect us most intimately. And if we’re in a spot where...
The Political Notebook: The Untouchables:... →
thepoliticalnotebook:
This is, I think, the problem with rock star journalists. Not with journalists who are good at their job, and who get awards or accolades or appreciation of readers and colleagues for doing what they do and doing it well, but rock star journalists. The ones whose names (and the accompanying weight of semi-earned media street cred) somehow manage to successfully usurp the...
Anonymous asked: Do you get published anywhere, and if so would you mind just dropping some links? (ie news websites ect...)
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“But competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would...”
– The presidency: So, Mitt, what do you really believe? | The Economist
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Ambiguity and Lance Armstrong
So Lance Armstrong announced that he was no longer going to fight doping charges. The Wikipedia article on the various allegations against Armstrong is both balanced and comprehensive.
On one hand, there have been a lot of allegations over a long time. In each of the cases the evidence has been sub-par. For example, there’s the testimony of a guy who got caught doping himself and may well...
A Brewing White House Scandal
barticles:
True story: President Obama will not release his secret recipe for home-brewed beer.
Inevitable blowback: It probably proves he was born in Kenya!
Bart, if you had any idea the sacrifices our President makes for our country, would you be so flippant? Example: Just by serving in the White House, President Obama is at constant risk that somebody will FOIA his home brew recipe....
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“Mr. Ryan blamed Mr. Obama for an 8 percent cut in Pentagon spending that is...”
– Ryan Blames Obama for Looming Defense Cuts - NYTimes.com
Of course.
(via robot-heart-politics)
8% defense cut FTW.
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Akin v. McCaskill polling
Rasmussen has released a new poll on the Senate race between Todd “Legitmate Rape” Akin and Claire McCaskill.1 This is really the first poll after Akin’s comments had enough time to percolate into the public awareness.
It turns out that a comment like that will erase turn a lead of around 3% into a deficit of 10%. In other words, the election looks like it went from...
Rigid Thinking →
kohenari writes:
To put this another way, Steinglass is incredibly proud of himself for reaching the conclusion that millions of college freshmen have reached, namely that there’s no such thing as morality, that everything we happen to believe to be right or true is wholly contingent, and that only good things can happen when we embrace the notion that everything is as good as everything else...
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Confession
I get about five emails a day asking me to contribute one bit of money or another to be automatically entered to win a trip to meet with somebody it would be pretty cool to meet. Sometimes its from a campaign I support, like the Obama campaign. Sometimes its from a campaign I really hope fails. Like Scott Brown’s campaign. Usually its from the Mundungus Fletchers of the political world (the...
Plato's Man Cave: Calling It Like I See It
Carolyn suggests this as a new tagline for my blog. I’m just hoping one of Ari’s students will take the idea and run with it.
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The Fallacy of the Stingy Liberal
Barticles quotes Jeff Jacoby’s piece titled “The Stingy Liberal.” The gist of the piece is that data shows suggests that the metropolitan areas where the median families give away the largest percentage of their income tend to be in very conservative places.
I wouldn’t respond—except that Jacoby calls out my hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts as one of the...
“Everyone wrings their hands about disparity of wealth. The truth is, there will...”
– sds
If you’ll pardon a side-bar, I’d like to have a quick theological discussion with SDS.
First, I don’t mind a little disparity of wealth. I believe in equality of opportunity and that society has a duty to show a bit of humanity to everybody, even if they’ve epically...
The Hipster Libertarian: How do you decide who to... →
Bonnie has written a thoughtful response to my previous post. She does not entirely agree with my thesis that we should simply vote based on our gut. That’s fine—it’s a stupid thesis. I think it’s a slightly less stupid thesis than the suggestion that some sort of academic meditation on a handful of litmus test issues changes anybody’s mind in a meaningful...
Before you vote this Fall
worstthatcouldhappen:
Think about issues. Comprehend those issues and how both sides have acted to deal with those issues not how they say they are going to deal with those issues. Just because you have knowledge over the issues doesn’t mean you understand them. Use logic not emotion when making decisions that effect the rest of the world.
I’d say just go with your gut instead.
The...
“At a time when poverty is increasing, when public parks and public libraries are...”
– Robert Reich (via azspot)
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“We support [Todd Akin] fully and completely.”
– Family Research Council Action PAC president Connie Mackey
The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the Family Research Council as a hate group. There’s been some recent criticism of that designation, particularly in light of the apparently politically-motivated shooting of at an FRC...
On Assange (Again)
Julian Assange has demanded that the U.S. end its “witch hunt” against WikiLeaks. The problem is that there is a bit of an evidence problem.
There is evidence that the U.S. has investigated the illegal leak of classified information. This is not a witch hunt. This is what you do when classified information gets out.
There is evidence that the U.S. has investigated whether Assange or...
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Crash Landings
When Chesley Sullenberger landed a plane in the Hudson, he was hailed as a hero. Nobody asked whether maybe if he’d eased up on the throttle at some point he could have avoided some serious travel disruption for the passengers. This is because we know enough about physics to know that crashing aluminum tubes into solid objects at high velocity is not good for the life expectancy of the 155...
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“[I]t’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep...”
– Rep. Todd Akin, U.S. Senate Candidate
Two observations:
Akin did not “misspeak.” If you mention the “57 states,” “misunderestimate,” or “the Google,” maybe you misspoke. The problem wasn’t Akin’s phrasing or pronunciation. The problem...
You Gotta Be Careful With Fireworks | The Onion →
I feel it is important to share this Jim Anchower article from 2003 because of how influential it has been for me as a writer.
Now, when you’re having a Roman candle fight, Fireworks Safety Rule #1 is “Never aim above the neck.” Fireworks are a little bit unpredictable, so it’s best to aim for the ass and hope the firework doesn’t stray too far north. But right...
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“The necessities of life occasion the great expence of the poor. They find it...”
– Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776).
So Romney with his 13% tax rate and Ryan with his proposed regressive tax cuts, are trying to reopen the debate on progressive income taxation. I feel like this debate was adequately settled a very long time ago. Why are we re-opening 18th century debates?...
I try to follow people who are interesting and...
As a rule, this makes my Tumblr Dashboard one of the more grown-up places on the Internet. If I want senseless drama, I have to turn to CNN.com.
For example, CNN has told me that there are apparently a contingent of conservatives who believe that the abhorrent shooting at the Family Research Council is part of some sort of organized war against Christianity. This news did not penetrate the...
Business and Regulation
I keep hearing that regulation is “anti-business.” It makes me wonder exactly what the people raising this claim think of the businesses they purport to defend.
Decent businesses don’t need to worry about decent regulation. If a regulation says you’re not allowed to sell folding chairs that collapse into a death trap when you sit on them, you’re not affected, unless...
“The United States is concerned about both the verdict and the disproportionate...”
– U.S. Department of State: Sentencing of Pussy Riot Punk Band Members in Russia
I’ll confess to a certain love of what a well-chosen band name can do to a state department press release.
Family Research Council Shooting a Reminder that... →
sds:
hilker:
Where’s the outrage?
Silly hilker. Everybody knows that violence against the left’s idea of “bigot” is acceptable.
It’s not “acceptable”—but that’s not why there’s not a lot of vocal outrage on the left. It’s just a matter of selection bias.
There’s a narrative on the left that suggests that a lot of folks on the right are...
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Hunger
Fortunately, food is cheap. It is entirely possible (though not easy) to feed a family on the maximum foodstamp benefit, provided you have access to groceries and enough financial sophistication to make it work. The program doesn’t cost the country that much money—and it’s made a very credible stab at eliminating hunger as a national problem.1
This is something we’ve got...
Torie's thoughts on Julian Assange mirror my own →
Including such gems as:
Haven’t we already done the “follow the white man’s ego down the road to revolution” thing before? I’m kind of over that.
And:
Ultimately of course, I want international law to be upheld. I want Julian Assange’s due process rights to be preserved. I want actual justice here. There’s no really clear side to be on, except to hope that everyone gets the full measure...
